The FCC should make clearer its plans to modify supported services, shift...
The FCC should make clearer its plans to modify supported services, shift support from providers offering only telephone service to those offering broadband and what it considers the cross-technology definition of broadband, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission said in late…
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comments on the National Broadband Plan. “Our concern is not that people are unaware of the transition to an all-IP world. Rather, we are concerned that the FCC has not made explicit the role it expects universal service mechanisms to play in that transition.” Breaking the action agenda for the plan into parts has “created the fiction that the impact of the implementation is likely to be small,” it said. “This is unlikely to be the case.” The Indiana commission said the FCC has done “insufficient analysis” of how the proposals would affect small and midsized rural ILECs. It agreed that high-cost support should be given to the fewest carriers necessary but said the FCC must look at a USF revamp holistically. It asked that parties get to comment specifically on eliminating high-cost loop support or reducing high-cost loop support, if that’s what the FCC intends to do.