Universal Service Fund subsidies should be automatically availabl...
Universal Service Fund subsidies should be automatically available to rural carriers using satellite broadband, Hughes, Inmarsat and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative said. In comments on the FCC’s three plans to revamp USF (see separate report in this issue),…
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the groups condemned a proposed rule that would require a commission waiver for USF recipients before they could use satellite broadband to fulfill new deployment requirements. “The economic challenges of deploying terrestrial-based communications infrastructure will mean that it could take many years for customers in hard-to-serve areas to have access to terrestrially provided broadband services, and in some cases terrestrially provided services will never be available,” Hughes and Inmarsat said in joint comments. “These customers deserve the option of being able to choose satellite-delivered broadband, even if it is available at slower speeds than the speeds that may be available using terrestrial-based services.” The satellite companies supported the FCC’s proposed USF contribution proposal, which would base payments to USF on the carrier’s quantity of residential phone numbers. However, the companies “are very concerned that the proposed contribution rate of $35 per assessable business connection over 64 kbps would have a punitive effect on satellite broadband providers who have lower user to connection ratios than terrestrial broadband providers,” they said.