WTA Discusses E-ACAM Order with FCC
On August 24, representatives from WTA met with staff from FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s office to urge the FCC to treat ReConnect grants as complimentary to E-ACAM support. Thus, locations that are being served by ReConnect grant/loan combinations would be eligible for E-ACAM support. WTA noted that E-ACAM support is intended to help recover both capital and operating expenses, and that continuing ACAM or other high-cost support was an important factor in RUS determinations to approve the subject ReConnect awards. Furthermore, areas that have received enforceable commitments for ReConnect awards that are 100% grant should be eligible for the same 50%-to-75% amount of current ACAM support that is being offered to incumbent local exchange carriers for locations where they have completed 100/20 Mbps.
WTA also urged the FCC to take a further look at the viability of the use of resold satellite services (including voice service latency and performance testing difficulties) in order to determine whether omitting to include satellite service resale as an option to serve very remote locations would discourage E-ACAM participation by ILECs and whether those remote locations are unlikely to otherwise be served by other federal and state broadband deployment programs.
