Alaska Communications Makes Broadband CAF II Commitments
Alaska Communications made broadband commitments to try to meet FCC expectations for expanding deployment in its price-cap service areas under the Connect America Fund Phase II program, after doing further analysis and engaging in discussions with Wireline Bureau staff. "Alaska…
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Communications will commit to making broadband available at 10/1 Mbps to a prescribed number of unserved locations within census blocks identified by the Commission as eligible, not to exceed 26,000 required locations, provided that up to 25 percent of the required number of locations may be unserved locations in partially-served census blocks, and up to ten percent of the required number of locations may be unserved locations in census blocks with model-based costs below the high-cost threshold but adjacent to eligible high-cost census blocks," the company said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. It asked that the first build-out milestone be set at 20 percent by year-end 2020. Alaska Communications also asked the FCC to require that competitive eligible telecom carriers (CETCs) receiving CAF support state by year-end 2017 "where they intend to deploy broadband and what middle-mile facilities they will build or lease in order to deliver broadband coverage meeting the FCC’s minimum broadband standards." Such advanced notice of deployment plans "followed by annual reporting of facilities actually deployed, would significantly increase CETC accountability for the nearly $1 billion targeted to their service areas" under an Alaska Telephone Association proposal involving rate-of-return carriers, Alaska Communications said.