Alaska Groups Agree on Keeping State USF, Disagree on Fixes
Stakeholders agree Alaska shouldn’t terminate state USF and that the current fee is too high, GCI observed in Tuesday reply comments at the Regulatory Commission of Alaska in docket R-18-001. But the company and others continued to disagree over the…
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right path forward, as they did in initial comments (see 1802270034). State Rep. David Guttenberg (D) said an industry proposal by the Alaska Telephone Association “does not adequately address how the AUSF should be reformed in order to support the infrastructure Alaska needs to bridge its digital divide and grow and diversify our economy in the 21st century.” It “would enshrine current carrier support without doing anything to enhance carrier accountability.” Industry’s suggestion to wait until 2029 to decide if AUSF should be retained, amended or repealed is “simply unacceptable,” he said. “That's over ten years of support that could be used to help Alaskans get better access to faster broadband. That's over ten years that the rest of the world will be building the infrastructure of the future.”