Alaska Communications Urges FCC Fixes to USF Rural Healthcare Funding 'Crisis'
Alaska Communications pressed the FCC on a rural healthcare telecom connectivity funding "crisis." The telco repeated "concerns about the resolution of Funding Year (FY) 2016 rural health care (RHC) funding requests, the likelihood of an even greater -- substantially greater…
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-- funding shortfall in FY 2017, and the detrimental and immediate impact this is having on the delivery of health care in rural parts of Alaska," said a filing posted Friday in docket 16-46 on meetings with aides to all five commissioners. The telco urged the commission to craft near-term and long-term solutions that would include "increasing the budget for RHC support, reducing delays in processing funding requests, and updating the rules to accommodate advanced service delivery." It also made several other filings, including on a petition for reconsideration on high-cost USF support in docket 10-90 (here) and VoIP service regulatory classification in docket 17-108 (here)