FCC Seeks Input on Sandwich Isles License; Company Opposes NAL, Waiver Repeal
The FCC invited input on a Hawaii agency request for guidance on a Sandwich Isles exclusive license and whether it conflicts with a federal mandate against barriers to competitive telecom entry. Comments are due Feb. 20. replies Feb. 27, on…
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a Department of Hawaiian Home Lands letter, said a Wireline Bureau public notice posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. The DHHL said Thursday it's "deeply troubled" by FCC findings that Sandwich Isles violated agency rules "to secure excessive and unwarranted USF support," and said it understood that if a study-area waiver is terminated, the company would be ineligible for subsidies. DHHL asked "that care be taken so that native Hawaiian homesteaders and other subscribers located on Hawaiian home lands are not inadvertently harmed in the process." DHHL said any Sandwich Isles' wrongdoing should be addressed without cutting USF support for broadband/telecom services to home land residents. Competition from other providers "may be viable in limited areas," but the agency believes "for the foreseeable future USF support will be needed in substantial areas" of the home lands. It sought guidance on whether an exclusive license it gave Sandwich Isles Communications (SIC) in 1995 is a potential barrier to competitive entry under Section 253(a) of the Communications Act. Meanwhile, the FCC's December notice of apparently liability and forfeiture order (see 1612060032) proposing a $49 million fine "is without merit, contrary to the record factual evidence, legally wrong and must be set aside," SIC said in a response posted Monday. SIC said the FCC didn't issue one of the public notices it promised in asking the company to show cause why its USF eligibility shouldn't be revoked and study-area waiver retroactively denied. The basis "for these proposed draconian actions is nowhere spelled out but is presumably predicated upon the alleged conduct of SIC and its former principal," the company said. "The conduct that is complained of will not support the massive forfeiture proposed," it said. "There is no basis for the imposition of even more severe penalties." In recent weeks, there have been more than 1,000 fillings (some with multiple signatures) in docket 10-90 from Hawaiians voicing support for SIC's waiver and concern about FCC actions.