FCC Grants Mescalero Opex Relief; O'Rielly Concerned About Precedent, Form 477 Use

capable of getting 10/1 Mbps connectivity was 88.97 percent at best, noted a 4-0 commission order in Wednesday's Daily Digest approving the carrier's petition for reconsideration (see 1805310032): "We agree that Mescalero Apache fell below the 90% benchmark and should be granted relief, including the same retroactive relief granted to other carriers in the [April] Order." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, who had pushed for the 90 percent cutoff to better target relief, said he voted to grant the petition "with real trepidation regarding the precedent we set and the incentives we create." Mescalero "may be able to demonstrate that its deployment is barely under the applicable threshold, but I still struggle to make sense of why this carrier is deserving or in need of a waiver for additional opex funding," he said. The order "highlights the problem of relying on Form 477 data for purposes of providing USF subsidies -- a use for which the data was never originally intended," he said: The FCC allows Mescalero "to mount its own informal challenge, unencumbered by objective challenge process parameters. ... [T]his ad hoc approach is not sufficiently transparent, leaves too much up to discretion, and is a poor substitute for a thorough comment opportunity." The "Form 477 Data problem is very real, and we don’t help matters by foregoing a meaningful challenge process for purposes of convenience," he added. Chairman Ajit Pai had said he would seek to extend opex relief to more tribal carriers, including Mescalero and Sacred Wind Communications (see 1810050044), but a circulated draft addressed only Mescalero's petition (see 1811130063). The FCC didn't comment Wednesday on Sacred Wind's petition.