FairPoint Communications’ petition for a waiver to let it conditionally...
FairPoint Communications’ petition for a waiver to let it conditionally accept $2.8 million in Connect America Fund Phase I subsidies that it previously declined has “no support in the record,” the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said Friday in reply…
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comments opposing the petition (http://xrl.us/bnwo69). FairPoint’s “untimely waiver request” seeks more than $4,000 in subsidies per location even though the commission already determined the level should be fixed at $775, WISPA said. The American Cable Association and NCTA also opposed FairPoint’s request for waiver, but the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance supported it (CD Oct 15 p5). FairPoint said in its own reply comments that it has met the requirements for a waiver because it had identified special circumstances, and the waiver would serve the public interest. Deploying rural broadband has “tremendous” costs, and a waiver acknowledging the “true costs of serving FairPoint’s most rural areas” would let the FCC “recalibrate its per unserved location support amount in order to fulfill the rapid broadband deployment goals of the CAF Phase I incremental support program,” FairPoint said. “This should steel the Commission’s resolve to end the rural-rural divide,” FairPoint said, arguing the $775-per-location rule was “an unrealistic benchmark” (http://xrl.us/bnwpar).