Carriers Seek Reconsideration on Parts of 5G Fund Order

to revise the noncompliance penalty to limit potential recovery of prior funding to the support an eligible telecom carrier failed to spend in compliance with fund requirements. “The Order imposes an unreasonable and unprecedented penalty … on mobile wireless ETCs that do not meet the newly-adopted deployment requirements, or that voluntarily relinquish future support -- even if the ETC’s actual spending complied” with the order's minimum 5G spending requirements, CTIA said: The penalties are “unreasonable and inconsistent with permissible spending rules." The Rural Wireless Association and NTCA jointly asked the FCC to rethink whether funds should be available for areas served by unsubsidized 4G networks. “That an unsubsidized 4G LTE network may be deployed in a particular area provides no guarantee or even reasonable assurance that 5G service meeting the required performance metrics will be deployed there, nor is there any basis for concluding that the deployment of 5G service to such an area is likely to occur,” the groups said: “History consistently instructs that rural areas are almost never served with the latest generation of service unless and until a small rural carrier based in that area begins to provide such service.” Smith Bagley asked the FCC to rethink a decision not to mandate special-case treatment for remote tribal lands. “The Commission denied special case treatment … without considering the substantial evidence placed into the record over many years demonstrating dire demographic and economic conditions” there, the carrier said: “The Commission has no factual basis for its view that conditions in Alaska are so unique that special treatment such as an ‘Alaska Plan’ is not warranted elsewhere.”