Legislators and Law Enforcement Plead for Big Bend USF Waiver
Members of Congress and law enforcement agencies backed Big Bend Telephone Co.’s FCC petition for a waiver of some of the new limits on USF recovery. BBTC says it’s the only voice and broadband provider available in the vast majority of its territory, and all alternative providers in the area rely on the company for backhaul transport services. Both Texas senators, Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, wrote FCC members to describe the “unique circumstances” that make BBTC particularly worthy of a waiver (http://xrl.us/bm2s8s).
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With a 17,000-square mile service territory that’s larger than nine states, and a rugged terrain so sparsely populated that the telco serves 0.3 wireline customers per square mile, BBTC has trouble maintaining a communications network at current USF support levels, let alone at the reduced levels adopted in the order, the legislators said. BBTC also provides “critical” communications services to law enforcement, they said. “With two international ports of entry and approximately one quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border in its territory, any disruption to those services could have unacceptable consequences for national security and public safety."
Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, fear the USF order “could jeopardize the Nation’s Border Security efforts between Texas and Mexico by disrupting critical Homeland Security communications in West Texas,” they wrote (http://xrl.us/bm2ta8). Referring to the 9/11 Commission report’s assertion that communications are essential for law enforcement, the congressmen expressed concern that if BBTC’s waiver isn’t granted, “West Texas could simply have its communications network shut off,” and “Border Security would be fundamentally undermined."
Cuellar and McCaul provided a list of institutions that would lose communications services if BBTC, the only terrestrial provider available to them, went dark. The list includes several government facilities, including Department of Homeland Security checkpoints, Department of Defense radar surveillance, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Weather Service, several Texas Department of Public Safety sites and 14 independent school districts.
BBTC has warned of dire consequences if its waiver request is not granted. The telco has several outstanding loans from the Rural Utilities Service, and the impending implementation of the quantile regression analysis imposed as part of the USF/intercarrier compensation order, which caps high-cost loop support at the 90th percentile, will cause BBTC to default on loan covenants by 2013 and be out of cash by 2016 (CD March 9 p3).