Rural Coalition Asks Pai, FCC to Simplify CAF II Auction, Keep Broadband Bid Weights
Small rural providers urged the FCC to simplify Connect America Fund auction of subsidies for fixed broadband-oriented services. "Many are concerned about the Auction’s complexity and the ways in which its structure may favor larger providers," said a filing posted…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Thursday in docket 10-90 by small electric co-operative, telco and cable officials who met with Chairman Ajit Pai and aides to all commissioners. A draft CAF Phase II auction item containing orders and a public notice is on the agenda for Tuesday's commissioners meeting (see 1801090050). If the FCC permits package bidding, "it could minimize the harm to smaller providers by: (1) reducing the minimum bidding unit from census block groups to census blocks; (2) limiting the overall size of a package bid to the county level; and (3) reducing the minimum scale percentage to 50%," said the rural interests. They encouraged the FCC to: increase flexibility of anti-collusion rules that complicate small providers' ability to use consultants; require spectrum-based providers to submit propagation maps and wireline providers to provide network maps; reconsider a draft PN proposal to scrap a "question asking an applicant to identify the assumptions it intends to make regarding subscription rate and peak period data usage"; not let satellite providers bid in any round for more locations than they have capacity for; and keep current bid weights for broadband performance tiers by adopting draft denial of a Hughes reconsideration petition.