Utilities Knock FCC Move to Scrap Certain Census Blocks From CAF Auction
Electric utility interests criticized an aspect of FCC Connect America Fund auction plans for providing $215 million in annual broadband-oriented support to unsubsidized rural areas traditionally served by larger telcos (see 1605250046 and 1605260034). Of concern in a recent order…
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and Further NPRM was "the Commission decision to eliminate census blocks from the reverse auction in areas where incumbent carriers declined the offer of model-based support and where rural broadband experiments were filed, based upon FCC Form 477 data that was filed for June 2015," said representatives of Ozarks Electric Cooperative and its broadband subsidiary OzarksGo, North Arkansas Electric Cooperative, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Utilities Technology Council. A UTC filing posted Monday in docket 10-90 summarized a meeting with an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler; the officials also met recently with other commissioner aides. They "urged the Commission to adopt weights for the upcoming reverse auction that would promote the deployment of future-proof networks and robust, reliable and affordable broadband services in rural America," said the council said. "They urged the Commission not to reallocate funds from certain census blocks into other census blocks or other states." The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said the FCC should "consider basing bidding weights on percentages" of a broadband "cost model's reserve price or the actual bid, as opposed to a strict numerical value" that "may not account for large differences in cost model prices." WISPA "also explained that low-latency bids should receive significant bidding credit relative to high-latency bids, because high-latency applications will not support 'reasonably comparable' voice service or other real-time, data-intensive services such as video-conferencing," said that group's filing on a recent meeting with Wireline Bureau officials. WISPA also opposed "any earmarking or awarding of minimum CAF support to certain states" where price-cap telcos declined FCC offers of CAF Phase II support.