FCC Lets Mobility Fund II Challenge Window Close Despite Process Concerns
States and rural wireless carriers remained concerned with the FCC’s Mobility Fund Phase II broadband-service subsidy process after the challenge window shut Monday. The commission didn’t act on NARUC’s request to extend the deadline to March 15, an FCC spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. The challenge process opened March 29 and the agency previously extended the deadline by 90 days.
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NARUC complained of technical glitches and other problems in a Nov. 19 motion based on a resolution approved at its Orlando meeting (see 1811200023). “The FCC did not have a lot of time to respond to our request before the deadline,” a NARUC spokesperson said Tuesday. “Nothing prevents the agency from allowing additional submissions of data before March.” The FCC spokesperson didn’t say if the agency would take late submissions.
South Dakota “met the established deadline to file" its MF-II challenges, emailed Commissioner Chris Nelson of the Public Utilities Commission. Nelson, who negotiated language for NARUC’s resolution, hadn’t heard how many other states wrapped their testing. Nearly a third “of the kilometer squares tested do not meet the service and speed levels claimed by the carriers” in South Dakota and should be added to the auction, he said. “There are a number of other areas [where] we believe the service does not meet the threshold but because those areas are entirely on private property testing could not be accomplished and those areas will remain unserved.”
The Competitive Carriers Association remains concerned about “accuracy and completeness of the data,” with the eligibility map “fundamentally flawed,” said CCA President Steven Berry. “Decisions based on the current FCC map will have a detrimental impact on consumers in rural America and their ability to access high-speed services for the next ten years.” While CCA members, state and local officials and farm bureaus “devoted significant time and resources to the challenge process, it no doubt will take a lot more work to correct the current inaccuracies,” he said.
While against another extension, the Rural Wireless Association agrees with NARUC that the MF-II process hasn't worked, said a letter posted Tuesday in docket 10-208. Members "spent millions of dollars and thousands of work hours" to participate in the challenge process, RWA said: "An extension through the winter season -- a time when difficult weather and treacherous road conditions will make drive testing dangerous in many locations and completely impossible in others -- is unlikely to yield a statistically significant increase in test points."
“Extending the deadline while still requiring prospective challengers to use the same map compiled with inaccurate data fails to address the real problem,” RWA said. Investigate overstated 4G LTE coverage claimed by Verizon and require the carrier to correct its data, the association recommended. Verizon and CTIA didn’t comment.
Correct MF-II maps and underlying subsidy data, and “allow a brief extension of the period of time to drive test and submit challenge data related to presumptively ineligible areas in the areas subject to correction,” the Missouri RSA Partnership petitioned. The current map doesn't reflect Chariton Valley Wireless and U.S. Cellular are subsidized providers, which currently makes the areas incorrectly ineligible for MF-II support, the group said.