NTCA and WTA Support Siskiyou High-Cost Waiver Request
NTCA urged the FCC to approve Siskiyou Telephone's request for a two-year waiver of agency rules imposing a $200 per-line monthly limit on high-cost universal service support. The California-based provider noted in a November filing it sought the waiver to…
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address the loss in support as customers were disconnected during wildfires in 2020 and 2022. The waiver “will allow adequate time for the lines lost to the fires to be replaced,” it said. “Siskiyou operates in some of the most difficult-to-serve rural (indeed frontier) areas of the nation,” NTCA said in a filing this week in docket 10-90. “Much of Siskiyou’s service area is in mountainous (elevations up to 8,200 feet) and granite-laden terrain, the latter requiring hard rock directional boring and rock saws to install network infrastructure,” NTCA said: In addition, “the company’s service area is vulnerable to the wildfires that have devastated California over the past several years.” WTA also supported the request. The waiver “will allow Siskiyou to continue to provide its valuable services to its remaining customers while the residents who lost their homes rebuild, thus well serving the public interest,” the group said: “Without such relief, Siskiyou may be unable to offer service to residents that lost their homes, thus compounding their suffering.”