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FCC Fine-Tunes Broadband Performance Measurement Order

The FCC Wireline Bureau is "more narrowly" tailoring penalties for its broadband performance testing program to recognize past performance in carriers that fall out of compliance at the end of their USF Connect America Fund support terms, said an order…

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to docket 10-90 posted Thursday. It will withhold support when a carrier is unable to demonstrate compliance at the end of the support term "only for the amount of time since the carrier's network performance was last compliant." It clarified that if a carrier "was not in compliance with our performance measures for five quarters of testing but comes into compliance before or during end-of-term testing," Universal Service Administrative Co. wouldn't recover any of the CAF support. But if the carrier never comes into compliance during the test period, USAC will withhold the appropriate amount for the entire term. The order differs from its draft by reconsidering a requirement for carriers to meet CAF performance test obligations even when customers chosen at random for testing haven't bought service offerings at the CAF-required speeds. Industry sought the changes (see 1910220007) and commissioners approved the order at their meeting Friday.