Wireless Broadband Should Be Encouraged as Part of Connect America Fund, Wireless Carriers Say
Wireless carriers asked the FCC to revise Connect America Fund (CAF) rules to remove any discrimination against wireless. The request came in filings at the FCC, most of which were posted Monday. The FCC sought comment on rules for the CAF II program, which will provide up to $1.8 billion per year in support to providers that offer broadband service in commission-identified eligible areas. The FCC also sought comment on the Mobility Fund Phase II program (MFII).
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The FCC can help ensure the success of the CAF II program “by making the competitive bidding process competitively and technologically neutral and encouraging participation by a wide range of providers,” CTIA said (http://bit.ly/1AbkO8S). More participation in the program “will lead to more aggressive bidding, lower funding awards, more effective use of universal service and public resources, and deployment of high-speed broadband services to more rural and high-cost areas.” By encouraging wireless carriers to participate in the CAF program “and all participants to use wireless technology in their bidding plans, the Commission will allow for the more efficient provision of service in many rural and high-cost areas,” CTIA said.
The Competitive Carriers Association struck a similar note. The program to date “has been unjustifiably skewed in favor of inefficient incumbents at the expense of competition and consumers,” CCA said (http://bit.ly/1lSaz0V). “CCA continues to believe that the most effective approach to achieving the universal service objectives underlying the CAF would be to distribute support on a competitively neutral basis through a single funding mechanism."
"As its first order of business, the Commission should ensure that there is sufficient support to permit investments in broadband wireless infrastructure in rural areas, as well as support for operating expenses of existing facilities in high-cost areas,” said C Spire Wireless (http://bit.ly/1sOn3KQ). The FCC should also increase the size of the Mobility Fund “in recognition of the fact that mobile broadband is not widely available in rural areas,” the carrier said.
AT&T offered broad comments on the program’s future, leading off with arguments that the FCC should make fundamental changes to its Lifeline program, ending price cap carriers’ eligible telecommunications carrier designations in areas where they cannot receive or choose not to receive high-cost support (http://bit.ly/1AbiG0U). AT&T also hinted at a potential legal challenge if the FCC adopts proposals to exclude from areas eligible for MFII support only those areas covered by 4G LTE provided by either AT&T or Verizon and to accelerate the phase-out of frozen support for those wireless carriers whose frozen high-cost receipts are 1 percent or less of their wireless revenue. AT&T said the proposals are “arbitrary and otherwise unlawful.”
Another topic of discussion was the FCC’s proposal to make 10 Mbps the “new standard for determining the presence” of an unsubsidized competitor in any area of the country.
If the FCC requires 10 Mbps service it needs to also change the parameters of the CAF program, ITTA said (http://bit.ly/1ppDxtV). “The cost of deploying a broadband network capable of delivering 10 Mbps is significantly more expensive than deploying a network capable of delivering 4 Mbps downstream,” the group said. The FCC should also increase the term of support and buildout requirements for CAF II recipients to 10 years “to allow them sufficient time to recoup their substantially increased investment, and it should commit to maintain the same broadband speed requirement for the duration of the funding period,” ITTA said.
A 10-year term is the “appropriate term of support and buildout period for all CAF Phase II support recipients” if speed standards are raised, said USTelecom (http://bit.ly/1ppE0MJ). The group said it supports the use of multiple technologies but any CAF recipient must be able to provide service that is “reasonably comparable to terrestrial fixed broadband service in urban America.”