Satellite broadband providers should be able to compete for government...
Satellite broadband providers should be able to compete for government broadband funding both “directly by themselves and through partnerships with other providers,” said Dish Network, Hughes Network Systems, ViaSat and WildBlue, during a meeting at the FCC. The FCC is…
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considering changing the universal service fund to pay for the expansion of broadband availability. One proposal would allow satellite broadband providers to participate only through partnerships with terrestrial providers. The satellite broadband providers met with representatives from the Office of the General Counsel and Wireless, Wireline and International bureaus, said the ex parte filing in docket 10-90 (http://xrl.us/bk2jf9). The public interest benefits that would come from satellite broadband services in unserved areas “will be realized fully only if satellite providers are permitted to participate on an equal footing with all other providers,” they said in the filing. The funding should be given out on the basis of small geographic units, such as census blocks, and the group asked “that the criteria for defining which households are eligible for support enable immediate and unambiguous determination of such eligibility based on available data,” they said. Policy decisions should be based on “forward-looking projections of the lowest price of service to end users” rather than on sunk costs, the providers said.