LTD Presses Minn. PUC to Pause Review
Shelve Minnesota’s LTD Broadband review until the FCC reverses its rejection of the company’s long-form application for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support, urged the company’s outside counsel Andy Carlson of the Taft firm at a teleconferenced prehearing conference Tuesday.…
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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is considering whether to revoke LTD Broadband’s ETC status while the company challenges the FCC rejection (see 2208240037). Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Kristin Berkland disagreed that the state commission should pause. FCC and PUC proceedings are "interrelated, but they are not interdependent,” with the state agency able to decide ETC designation regardless what the FCC is doing, she said. Carlson said LTD’s actual buildout will be proof it's qualified to deploy broadband. "That's great,” said Berkland, “but ideally you want to know in advance whether a company can do those things that it says it can do because it is incredibly difficult to claw back funding from a company that overrepresents its ability.” Minnesota PUC Administrative Law Judge Jim LaFave said he will decide later how to proceed. In South Dakota, the state telecom association urged the Public Utility Commission Sept. 2 to deny LTD’s request to suspend a proceeding to rehear its denied ETC application. The PUC should instead close docket TC21-001, it said. That request remains pending.