FCC Draft Would Address ACS Petition to Reconsider 2016 Order on CAF II Service Duties
An FCC draft order on an Alaska Communications Systems targeted request on the Connect America Fund was sent to commissioners March 19, said the agency's circulation list updated Friday. The draft in docket 10-90 addresses an ACS petition to reconsider…
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an Oct. 31, 2016, order setting CAF Phase II voice and broadband service obligations for the carrier, an FCC spokesman emailed Monday. That petition sought to revisit one aspect of the order. To receive $20 million in annual "frozen" USF subsidy support over 10 years, ACS was "required to offer voice and broadband service at the same speed, latency, usage and pricing metrics as established for Phase II model-based carriers to at least 31,571 locations, primarily in census blocks identified as high-cost that are unserved by unsubsidized competitors, with limited exceptions," said the 2016 order (see 1610310056). "The Commission allows up to 2,714 of those locations to be in census blocks that are deemed 'low-cost' under the Connect America Model ... provided such census blocks are adjacent to high-cost census blocks, and provided Alaska Communications certifies that the selected locations themselves are actually 'high-cost," said the ACS petition. "Alaska Communications objects to none of these conditions, but seeks reconsideration only of the meaning of 'high-cost' in this context."