CPUC Had 'No Concrete Plan Forward' in RDOF Delay Request, Pai Says
The FCC fully considered the California Public Utilities Commission’s request to delay its rollout of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I (see 2001140028) but decided not to grant it because "it presented no concrete plan on the way forward,”…
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Chairman Ajit Pai said in letters to Rep. Anna Eshoo and three other California Democratic members of the House Communications Subcommittee, released Friday. Eshoo and Communications Vice Chair Doris Matsui, Tony Cardenas and Jerry McNerney wrote Pai in January seeking an explanation of the FCC’s rejection of the delay. The CPUC “offered no budget, no methodology for determining where subsidies would be directed, no criteria for provider eligibility, no timeline for distribution of funding and deployment, no auction design -- in short, no partnership for the FCC to join,” Pai said. “Their suggestion, if accommodated, would cause significant delay and confusion in the entire program, as the Commission created separate mechanisms and state-specific rules for each state, instead of connecting millions of unserved Americans to broadband networks as quickly as possible. It would cause still further delay to ensure that each state's unique proposed [RDOF] mechanism for awarding support operated consistently with the Commission's decision to allocate support using market-based mechanisms.”