The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.
FCC Rural Broadband Support
The FCC announced it authorized rural broadband experiment support in the amount of $3,491,280.18 for Lake County, Minnesota d/b/a Lake Connections (Lake Connections) to enable it to bring new broadband service to 8497 locations in 845 census blocks in Minnesota. A list of the relevant census blocks is available here. The FCC directed and authorized the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to obligate and disburse from the Connect America reserve account the support amounts identified in the Public Notice. Lake Connections elected to receive 30% of its total support upfront in exchange for meeting an accelerated deployment obligation to build out to 25% of all eligible locations within 15 months of receiving its first disbursement, i.e., April 2, 2018. Accordingly, USAC will disburse 30% of the total support amount with the first monthly payment and the remaining 70% of the total support amount in 120 equal monthly installments over the 10-year term. As a result of the authorization, price cap carriers that serve the census blocks covered by the bid no longer have a federal high-cost ETC obligation to continue to offer voice service in those census blocks.
Maryland Consumer Guide To Lifeline
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel has published a new Lifeline Guide designed to educate Maryland consumers about the changes in the federal Lifeline programs. It describes the new rules adding broadband service to the Lifeline program as well as the FCC’s new minimum service standards for voice and broadband services. It also describes the changes in the Lifeline eligibility requirements that went into effect December 2 for most of the country but which will not be implemented in Maryland until October 31, 2017. See our blog States Rush to Implement FCC Lifeline Changes dated 12/13/16 for more information about which states obtained waivers of the new FCC requirements.
