The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association filed suit in the 10th...

of the new caps, which are set to be phased in starting Sunday. “The methodology for limiting rural carriers’ cost reimbursements through the USF’s high-cost program is, among other things, riddled with data errors and fails to provide predictable support,” a spokeswoman said. Specifically, NTCA took issue with a capping methodology it said would violate the commission’s statutory mandate to deploy predictable and sufficient mechanisms to advance universal service; inaccuracies in the data set used to designate geographic boundary areas and to compute the formulas’ coefficients’ and retroactive application to limit reimbursements for expenses incurred in past years. “NTCA recognizes the need for modernization of the universal service and intercarrier compensation regimes, which is why we made significant efforts last year to reach a consensus with other industry sectors on suggested updates to those programs,” said Shirley Bloomfield, NTCA’s CEO. “But these specific caps don’t achieve the purpose of modernization. To the contrary, the unpredictable, ever-changing and retroactive nature of these caps are already frustrating routine business planning, setting back investment in rural broadband, and will lead to declining service quality and higher prices for rural Americans.” NTCA has already filed for commission-level review of the regression caps, in a joint May filing with OPASTCO, the National Exchange Carrier Association and the Western Telecommunications Alliance (CD May 29 p7).