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But as the nation looks to wireless and fiber broadband networks as its on-ramp to e-mail, tweets and Skype calls, lawmakers and regulators have called for sweeping changes to the Universal Service Fund.

Created in 1997 to connect the nation by phone, the subsidy program has come under criticism as a symbol of inefficient federal telecommunications policy.

In some areas, the subsidies go to multiple companies providing the same services.

Critics suggest that satellite service would be cheaper than stringing phone lines across mountains and plains and then maintaining those services indefinitely through federal subsidies, which come from monthly fees charged to long-distance and wireless customers.

The biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon Communications, are calling for changes and rallying behind legislative and policy reforms. Yet recent data released by the Federal Communications Commission and the House Energy and Commerce Committee show that the telecom giants are also benefiting the most from the service fund.

The firms are using the money to pay for wireless networks, which is allowed as long as they are providing cellphone service in unserved areas. But critics say the companies would be building cell towers even without federal help.

"In some parts of the country, there are up to 20 providers receiving subsidies," Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) said in a recent news release about the data, adding that it calls "into question the size, structure and purpose of the subsidies."

AT&T and Verizon were the top recipients of Universal Service Fund grants last year. From 2007 to 2009, AT&T received $1.3 billion from the fund, and Verizon received $1.2 billion to bring communications services to areas that would be too costly to serve without federal assistance.

The companies point to the subsidy as symbol of backward regulation, among a string of policy moves by the federal government that the companies say could hurt the economy. They also have argued against a proposal to redefine broadband as a telecommunications service, saying the move could lead to rate regulation and force them to share their networks with competitors.

Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon and chairman of the Business Roundtable trade group, said in a letter to the White House last month that the service fund was among a list of "policy burdens inhibiting growth."

The subsidy program "rewards inefficiency, discourages competition and broadband deployment, and unduly benefits specific companies rather than consumers," Seidenberg wrote.