We would call 911, but this highway robbery is perfectly legal. Congress' attempts to ensure affordable telephone and Internet services in every corner of the nation, including rural and low-population areas, led to the creation of a fund that can be tapped by companies that provide such services. But those companies are taking unfair advantage of the program. Congress has been alerted to the problems, and it should fix them.

Americans who pay attention to their home and cell phone bills and to their Internet service provider bill probably have noticed the Universal Service Fund, or USF, fee added to their monthly invoices. Congress allowed companies to levy the fee on long-distance charges to pay for four programs (one of them helps libraries and schools connect to the Internet).

The program that is by far the largest of the four was meant to encourage companies to serve rural areas. Originally, telephone companies with overhead wires -- think of the Bells -- tapped the fund, in large part because it didn't pay them to extend poles and lines to hard-to-reach or sparsely populated areas. The fund (it disbursed about $4.1 billion last year) made it cost-effective to serve such areas.

But cell phone companies, which don't have such high overhead costs, soon discovered the fund. And the law says that every land, cell and Internet company that serves a targeted area can tap the fund when a customer signs up for a service, whether it's a home or cell phone or Internet service. Companies are getting rich, customers are getting skinned monthly, and Congress is being pressured by the companies to keep the gravy train running.

Serving rural areas is a laudable goal. But if companies are to be subsidized, it's clear the Federal Communications Commission has some fine-tuning to do.