Pai: Lawmakers 'May Be Right' on Need for 'Fundamental' Fixes to USF Stand-Alone Broadband Issues
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai responded to letters from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and more than 100 House members earlier this month in response to their concerns about the USF’s stand-alone broadband problem, which prevents rate-of-return (RoR) carriers from receiving USF…
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support for broadband customers using other providers for voice service. Pai noted ongoing FCC efforts to address a “punch list of lingering issues” with the commission’s 2016 order revamping the RoR USF support mechanisms (see 1603300065). Pai also plans to continue his push on rural broadband deployment at the FCC’s Aug. 3 meeting (see 1707130059). Despite the 2016 order, “I still hear from small carriers that offering stand-alone broadband would put them underwater; that the rates they have to charge exceed the rates for bundled services because of the different regulatory treatment,” Pai said in letters to Ernst and the House members (see here, here, here and here). “This is unfortunate but unsurprising. As I said at the time, the Order needlessly complicated our rate-of-return system and in many ways made it harder, not easier, for small providers to serve rural America.” Pai said he hopes the changes will help, but the lawmakers “may be right that something more fundamental is needed. After all, if the Order is not carrying out its stated purpose of advancing broadband deployment in rural America, we cannot ignore that problem -- for time is not on the side of rural Americans.”