Is this even news? If they thought there was a profit to be made by offering them upgrades, they would do it. They haven't, so you can probably assume that there is no profit in doing so. Last I checked, AT&T was not a charity and does not have an obligation to give people things at cost. This isn't discrimination, it's business. Nobody has a right to a fast internet connection.
That would be all well and good if they didn't collude with the local authorities against competition and collect "universal service" funds from the government in exchange for, at most, the barest minimum effort. Either be a benevolent monopoly (no such thing IMHO) or compete in a free market.
That's a separate issue though, and something I am quite strongly against. The article was about "discriminating" specifically against the poor, and unless you'd like to argue that their collusion is willfully and knowingly done specifically to discriminate against poor people, I don't think it applies.
I agree that we shouldn't be too quick to label every potentially unfair situation as discrimination. But part of the original intent (Ajit Pai notwithstanding) of the USF was to bring quality service to rural and low income areas, so AT&T should be careful to fulfill their obligation and, ideally, the government should hold them to it.
Whatever money AT&T receives from the USF almost certainly doesn't compensate for the revenue loss caused by putting an 18% extra tax on AT&T's products (which is how the USF is funded--an excise tax on the telecom industry).
How about all the other subsidies we've given to telecoms companies over the past few decades in return for unfulfilled promises that the money would be used to expand and upgrade networks?
