The FCC Wireline Bureau could use $129 million in leftover funds “to fully satisfy demand for Rural Health Care Program funding” for 2025, said a public notice Wednesday. The FCC’s rules for the RHC Program “establish a process to carry forward unused funds from past funding years for use in future funding years.”
The shuttering of the North American Numbering Council (see 2506240074) could make it harder for the FCC and industry to deal with the problem of telephone number exhaustion and other issues overseen by the group for the last 30 years, former NANC officials told us. The NANC’s charter expires in September, and its last meeting was Tuesday. Members learned of the decision to end the long-standing advisory committee about two weeks ago, said 15-year NANC veteran Richard Shockey, board chairman of the SIP Forum.
Comments are due July 8 on ACS of Fairbanks’ application to discontinue legacy voice services in Fairbanks, Alaska, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically on July 24, unless the FCC notifies ACS otherwise.
Don't duplicate the U.S. national security review process through a submarine cable rules update, the Submarine Cable Coalition urged FCC staffers. In a docket 24-523 filing posted Monday, the coalition said the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector already comprehensively reviews all cable landing license applications and puts binding mitigation measures on licensees and their customers. It also argued against the FCC's proposed licensing regime for submarine line terminal equipment, saying it would increase regulatory uncertainty and affect deployment timelines. The International Connectivity Coalition has previously lobbied against the FCC's subsea cable proposals (see 2505300038).
Comments are due July 7 on CenturyLink’s application to discontinue legacy voice services in several communities in Florida, said a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically on July 21, unless the FCC notifies CenturyLink otherwise.
Lumen has exited the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and won’t be continuing efforts to meet RDOF milestones, the company said in a filing Monday responding to a May inquiry from the Universal Service Administrative Co. Earlier this month, Lumen relinquished its last remaining RDOF awards in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon and Washington. The company had relinquished awards in nine census block groups in August 2024. In its June letter turning over its final RDOF awards, Lumen said it understands it could be subject to penalties for noncompliance and reserved the right to seek a waiver or other relief.
The FCC Wireline and Wireless bureaus and the Office of International Affairs have signed off on the transfer of control of Windstream and Uniti Group as part of the two companies' merger, said a public notice Wednesday (docket 24-165). The merger was announced in 2024 and is expected to close in the back half of this year. The FCC said it concluded that the deal wouldn't reduce competition or hurt USF programs.
American Electric Power representatives met with FCC Wireline Bureau staff to question the timelines that NCTA proposed in an April letter on pole attachments (see 2505080028). NCTA’s plan would “lead to more disputes at the Commission -- not to quicker broadband roll-out,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-84.
The BEAD policy changes announced earlier this month (see 2506060052), such as putting satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless (uFW) on equal standing with fiber projects, leave prior BEAD applicants "in a defensive position," Keller & Heckman communications lawyer Casey Lide wrote Tuesday. Fiber providers that already submitted BEAD applications now have to compete against low earth orbit satellite and uFW solely on cost, "with unequal technologies being treated the same." More funding for uFW means a uFW provider can protect its existing service territory from BEAD funding by showing that the current service meets certain technical requirements, he said. Meanwhile, there's no apparent process for third-party comment or intervention, and it's not clear whether state broadband offices would have enough time to hear contrary evidence, Lide said. The BEAD policy notice is also "conspicuously silent" about locations that can be served by LEO now and whether they should be removed from BEAD eligibility. Lide said that if maps of BEAD-eligible locations aren't updated before funding decisions are made, BEAD money "will end up supporting significant overbuilding of existing networks," given how much deployment occurred while the BEAD process dragged on. Past BEAD applicants that want to resubmit might need "to aggressively adjust" the BEAD proposal budget, he said.
CenturyLink asked the FCC for another 60-day extension on its application for the emergency impairment of service in limited parts of the Florence, Colorado, wire center, which was damaged by flooding in 2018. “There is no timeline for rebuilding the road that was washed out by the flooding,” said a filing posted Monday (docket 19-69). The U.S. Forest Service “continues to believe it is still years away even from evaluating the possibility of rebuilding that service road, given how unsettled the terrain remains from the flooding,” the carrier said. “Temporary cable continues not to be a feasible solution to provide service due to the rugged, mountainous terrain and instability in the area.”