NARUC's Presley Opposes Rural Broadband Bill on ETCs, Backs Rival Bill
NARUC President Brandon Presley is reversing course on the Rural Broadband Acceleration Act, saying with Telecom Subcommittee Chair Karen Charles Peterson to Senate Commerce Committee leaders that he now opposes a revised version of the bill (HR-7447/S-4201) and supports the…
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rival Accelerating Broadband Connectivity Act (S-4021). Presley endorsed an earlier version of the Rural Broadband Acceleration Act (HR-7022) in June (see 2005280048). Both versions of the bill would require the FCC to award funding by Sept. 30 to some Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I applicants in a bid to speed the release of money before a planned late October reverse auction. HR-7447/S-4201 also would eliminate a requirement companies be designated eligible telecom carriers, which doesn’t have universal stakeholder support (see 2006300010). The proposal to eliminate the ETC designation procedure “is anti-consumer and encourages abuse of the RDOF program and customers served by that program,” Presley and Peterson said in a letter to Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “It reduces program oversight and has other broad implications for the existing State-Federal universal service partnership envisioned by Congress” in the 1996 Telecom Act. “Absent a rule or statutory change, carriers that are not designated will not have to provide federal Lifeline services or comply with other ETC requirements,” the NARUC leaders said. “Even with changes, removal of the ETC designation procedure will allow the carrier to choose whether to offer customers any enhanced state Lifeline subsidy (in those states that provide additional support for low-income lifeline services). For states that conduct designation proceedings, elimination of the ETC requirement effectively takes state cops off the beat.”