Trade Groups Press FCC for More Revisions to CAF Broadband Performance Measurements

Michael Jacobs, ITTA vice president-regulatory affairs, saw many improvements in the draft compared with what was in a July 2018 order. But the group has lingering concerns, particularly over paragraph 69. "It sets up the possibility for some really draconian penalties," Jacobs said. Some thought it "suggests the commission has two different cracks at clearing compliance," he said.

"Consequences of getting this wrong are very significant," said Mike Romano, NTCA senior vice president-industry affairs and business development. "They're going to treat a failure to test properly as a failure to deploy." Romano said if providers fail a performance test under the proposed rules, they can "true it up later," but questions arise about when it's a final test in year 10 of the buildout. "If you fail that final test, that shouldn't be unrecoverable," Romano said. NTCA seeks revisions to include "one last attempt to cure that" before a provider is penalized. The group also wants more clarity about the penalties. "If [performance] is deemed to fail at a rate of 10 percent and that means it's a failure to deploy, that's harsh," he said.

Romano said poor test results at a small percentage of locations doesn't necessarily represent an entire network's performance. The problem could be something easily and quickly resolvable, he said. "It could be a blip in time. To extrapolate across all the areas in the network, that seems draconian."

"There's a lack of proportionality," said Mike Saperstein, USTelecom vice president-policy and advocacy. Treating a location that misses a performance target the same as though it were never deployed "is difficult to understand," he said. USTelecom and others asked the FCC to remedy this through changes in the draft.

Associations sought revisions on a proposal that providers upgrade customers to higher broadband service tiers when random samples don't yield enough customers at those tiers to test at the necessary level to meet FCC performance standards. "That's not always a seamless back-office upgrade," Saperstein said. "It's more intrusive than the commission realized." A provider may need to schedule a service call, pay for a truck roll and in some cases provide new equipment. USTelecom asked the FCC to allow providers whose random sampling didn't select enough customers at the higher service levels to go back and pick another random sample.

Jacobs praised the FCC for including a pretesting regime that will allow providers to "find some of the kinks ahead of time" before actual performance measurements. In anticipation of measurement, some ITTA members procured equipment for hourly latency tests, as they expected the FCC to require, but the new draft asks for once-per-minute latency tests, Jacobs said. "We hope there's relief for providers who'd already designed systems," Jacobs said. "Upgrades would be costly otherwise."

"Latency is important," NTCA's Romano said, because voice is the USF-supported service. "When it comes to voice, latency is critical."

NTCA also wants the FCC to clarify definitions for requirements that providers test through a designated interexchange point, or IXP. "The concern is one party interprets it one way, then another, another way," Romano said.

Overall, the draft order took "a thoughtful approach," Romano said. "We're fans of the notion of testing, but it's important to get it right."

"Our members are focused on the reality that with subsidies come obligations," said Jacobs. "The commission has been cognizant of the costs and is trying to minimize the burdens."