Several rural telecom providers wrote the FCC Wireline Bureau to...
Several rural telecom providers wrote the FCC Wireline Bureau to seek “clarification and further details” on the quantile regression analysis and related caps on USF support, said letters posted Friday. Twin Valley Communications in Kansas, Filer Mutual and ATC in…
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Idaho and Nelson Telephone Cooperative in Wisconsin asked how their study area boundaries were established to develop the caps applicable to them, and what can be done to avoid falling under the caps in the future. Filer and ATC haven’t been affected by the USF caps, but Twin Valley and Nelson said they were both affected, and asked which specific costs are deemed “excessive” under the caps. Without that information, the companies fail to see “how the caps will encourage ‘efficient’ or ‘prudent’ behavior or provide a predictable support mechanism because we will not know what is expected by the new rules or how they will affect future support distributions,” they wrote. ATC sent a separate letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to ask him to suspend implementation of the USF/intercarrier compensation order, including the July 1 date for implementation of the regression methodology, “until the FCC can provide greater certainty that the rules will not jeopardize the services provided by rural rate-of-return carriers and the consumers that rely on them for broadband and other telecommunications services” (http://xrl.us/bncj99).