Broadband Providers Contest Chunk of Areas on FCC's Initial CAF Auction List
Broadband providers challenged up to 36,897 of 317,243 census blocks on a preliminary FCC list of areas targeted for a planned Connect America Fund reverse auction of $215 million in annual broadband USF subsidies, according to our review. The agency…
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asked interested parties to update the FCC on areas that wouldn't be eligible for auction support because of the presence of a qualifying broadband service -- with 10/1 Mbps, minimum usage of 150 GB or greater at a rate meeting a commission benchmark, and latency not exceeding 100 ms (see 1608110018). Twenty-two parties submitted filings that were posted by Thursday in docket 10-90. Frontier Communications led the way, saying it provided qualifying broadband service to 15,789 census blocks on the preliminary list, based on our tabulation of its submission. JAB Wireless (Rise Broadband) said it served 11,278 census blocks and Windstream said it serves 3,170 census blocks on the list. AT&T serves 2,929 census blocks and Charter Communications serves 1,341 census blocks on the list. The numbers could increase because some parties said they will update their totals, and N.E. Colorado Cellular (Viaero Wireless) filed its list confidentiality. But it's also possible there's some overlap among the census blocks identified by different parties as served, which could reduce the total number of reportedly served census blocks. After the FCC completes the review process, it will issue a final list of eligible census blocks. Some auction rules are still under consideration.