The USF items were among a handful of proposals the FCC voted on Wednesday as part of the first steps toward implementing the wide-ranging national broadband plan. Among the plan's goals are universal availability of broadband across the U.S. and 100M bps (bits per second) service to 100 million U.S. homes by 2020.

USF reform will require many compromises to reach the end goal, but reform is needed to fund broadband deployment in areas that don't yet have it, said Commissioner Michael Copps.

"Comprehensive reform is never painless and when it comes to building a new Universal Service system, shared sacrifice will be required from just about every stakeholder," Copps said. "Maybe, probably, this is why the commission has never successfully tackled comprehensive Universal Service reform before."

Robert McDowell, one of two Republicans on the five-member commission, also praised the move toward USF reform. He called on the FCC to reduce USF fees and to limit the growth of the fund as it transforms the program. The fees on some services that telecom carriers pay to support USF have grown from 5.5 percent in 1998 to 15 percent now, McDowell noted.

"If we have been able to agree on only one thing at the FCC, it is that the Universal Service subsidy system is antiquated, arcane, inefficient and just downright broken," he said. "Positive and constructive change must happen as soon as possible."