CenturyLink Asks FCC to Stay Penalties During Recon Bid on Interim CAF II Milestone
CenturyLink asked FCC staff to not enforce USF withholding penalties and reporting rules, pending resolution of its petition to reconsider a staff determination and Universal Service Administrative Co. broadband deployment findings. A Feb. 22 Wireline Bureau letter notified CenturyLink it's…
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"subject to these penalties and enhanced reporting requirements based on the Bureau’s determination that CenturyLink missed its 40 percent interim deployment milestone for Connect America Fund ('CAF') Phase II in Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, and Wisconsin," said the telco's stay filing in docket 10-90 posted Wednesday. Saying the bureau has no timetable for acting on that petition and USAC will begin withholding $4.45 million monthly in CAF support later in March, the carrier sought expedited consideration of its stay request: "These losses could well be unrecoverable. If CenturyLink’s support is withheld as ordered in the Noncompliance Letter, this may interfere with the company’s ability to continue to deploy broadband to additional locations. Under the CAF-II rules, the company is subject to graduated deployment milestones with each passing year, and significant penalties if it does not complete at least 95 percent of its total required deployment by the end of 2020." USAC auditors declined to verify certain locations as served "because of purported mismatches between the geocoordinate and address information in CenturyLink’s records and the coordinates and address information CenturyLink reported to USAC," said the recon petition. It cited "industrywide discussions" with regulators on multi-dwelling unit locations and "shortcomings" in USAC's high cost universal broadband (HUBB) system, and additional locations it reported Feb. 27 in the HUBB. The additional locations combined "with the Mismatch Locations alone, are sufficient to bring CenturyLink’s total locations served above the 40 percent compliance milestone," it said, suggesting recognition of other served locations would further increase compliance.