ILEC Associations Send USF Budget Consensus Proposal to FCC

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On Oct. 1, WTA, along with USTelecom, NTCA and ITTA, sent a letter to the FCC with a consensus proposal on the USF High Cost Fund budget and providing certainty to cost-base rate-of-return carriers.

The four Associations urge the FCC to:

  • Increase the High Cost Fund budget to not less than $2.4 billion for 2018, in addition to the $200 million already committed to the current A-CAM Program. The increase should be devoted to providing A-CAM participants the support level initially offered to them in 2016 (i.e. $200/month per location) and mitigating, if not eliminating, the budget control mechanism.
  • Adjust the High Cost Fund for inflation.
  • Create a mechanism so that should USF support need to be reduced to stay within a budget in the future, support does not drop below a “floor” based in some manner upon each carrier’s unconstrained costs over the prior three years or the carrier’s then-current unconstrained support.
  • Focus on finishing the job already begun by fully funding ACAM carriers at $200/location and carriers on the cost-based mechanism before offering any new model offers, with the exception of offers to companies that would receive less model support than they do under the cost-based mechanism.