Several CEOs and general managers of small telcos wrote to...
Several CEOs and general managers of small telcos wrote to President Barack Obama this week to highlight the effects of the FCC’s “flash-cut elimination” of Safety Net Additive (SNA) support in the 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order. SNA has historically provided…
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small rural telcos with USF support over a five-year period starting two years after qualifying investments are made. In its order, the FCC “unfairly eliminated the mechanism looking backward for carriers who made qualifying investments in 2010 and 2011 -- prior to the release of the FCC’s order,” the letter said. That provision “threatens to undermine steps taken in the past few years to deploy broadband-capable communications networks,” it said. “Although the amount of SNA support at issue is relatively small in the grand scheme of things,” the $5 million to $10 million in support that “has been yanked away” will make it harder to pay down Rural Utilities Service loans and harder to keep prices low for consumers, the letter said. “We ask that you please encourage the FCC to reconsider the retroactive, flash-cut elimination of SNA support and to address the risk it poses to our shared public policy objectives."