USTelecom (USTA) urged the FCC to deny a General Communication In...
USTelecom (USTA) urged the FCC to deny a General Communication Inc. (GCI) request to change the way high cost support is distributed to carriers. GCI said the FCC should clarify its procedures to reflect an earlier decision that can…
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be interpreted as barring ILECs from getting universal service payments for customers who have switched totally to facilities-based competitors. USTelecom said the GCI request is “procedurally improper” because “the rule that supposedly needs clarification… was modified over 5 years ago and, critically for GCI’s request, has been applied in the way about which GCI complains ever since.” According to Aug. 17 USTelecom comments: “During those 5 years, the entire industry has understood the application of the rule, so there is no need for ‘clarification’… GCI has cloaked what would be a monumental and, for many communities, a possibly catastrophic change in rural high cost support in a seemingly minor, even innocuous, ‘request for clarification’… In any meaningful sense, the rule is clear -- when a rural incumbent LEC loses customers, the cost of its network remains fully supported. This is the rule and GCI is asking for the rule to be changed not clarified.” USTelecom said the rule at issue involves carriers of last resort: “When a carrier of last resort loses a customer, it does not lose most of the cost of providing service to that customer. Instead, the network and its associated costs remain, as does the obligation to provide service.”