Rural Carriers Say FCC Should Make Changes to A-CAM II Rules
Groups representing rural carriers supported a petition by Pineland Telephone Cooperative challenging an FCC decision last year in a Connect America Fund order. The agency decided carriers that accepted the initial or revised alternative connect America model (A-CAM) offers in 2016 aren't eligible for A-CAM phase II support (see 1812120039). The rural ILECs also backed a Silver Star petition asking the FCC to rethink a decision to retain the high-cost loop support rural growth factor and not impose a cap. Replies on both were posted in docket 10-90 through Tuesday.
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ITTA endorsed the Pineland arguments. A distinction in the order allowing funding for census blocks that already include fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) or cable to some locations for A-CAM II support recipients, “but not for current A-CAM program participants, is inequitable,” ITTA said.
A-CAM II is “an important step in this Commission’s commitment to ensuring that rural America has access to the same type of broadband service that urban Americans have long been able to take for granted, and it should therefore be extended to operators willing to make this additional commitment to their communities regardless of prior elections,” NTCA commented. Silver Star also makes valid points, NTCA said. “As Silver Star correctly argues, the Commission ignored substantial evidence that these provisions produce unpredictability and insufficiency with respect to High Cost support that damages the company’s (as well as similarly situated operators’) ability to invest in networks capable of offering both voice and broadband services,” NTCA said.
WTA supported both petitions. Allowing ACAM I adopters to apply for Phase II funds will give providers an opportunity “to deploy more of the 25/3 Mbps service that has now become the standard broadband speed to locations in those currently excluded and unsupported FTTP census blocks that do not currently have 25/3 Mbps or better service,” WTA said. WTA said of the Silver Star petition, the FCC “should stop penalizing HCLS recipients for immaterial line count decreases.”
“Granting the Pineland Petition would potentially provide significant broadband availability at very little cost to the overall A-CAM budget,” said West Carolina Rural Telephone Cooperative. “No community should be relegated to less than 25/3 Mbps by the Commission’s incongruent FTTP policy.”
The FCC also noted in a Tuesday Federal Register notice the effective date for eliminating the CAF rate floor is June 6. After a one-year period of monitoring residential retail rates, the agency will also eliminate the accompanying reporting obligations after July 1, 2020.