How can you offer voice if you can not get local phone number's because of a rural telephone cooperative?
Scottie Arnett President Info-Ed, Inc. Electronics and More 931-243-2101 sarn...@info-ed.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred R. Goldstein" <fgoldst...@ionary.com> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 5:02 PM Subject: [WISPA] FCC releases USF/ICC Order, rules on subsidizing ILECs > On Friday, the FCC finally released the Order in their Intercarrier > Compensation and Universal Service Fund docket. The executive > summary had come out with the Adoption at last month's FCC Public > Meeting, but the 759-page (!) Order took a while to finish. > > The results, from a WISP perspective, are not nearly as bad as could > have been. The FCC has taken safeguards to make it easier for an > unsubsidized WISP to prevent subsidized competition from an incumbent LEC. > > The high-cost portions of the Universal Service Fund are being > restructured into the Connect America Fund. This will come into > being in three phases, each with different rules for Price Cap > Carriers and Rate of Return Carriers. About 95% of phone lines are > in the former category; the latter are basically small rural carriers > who depend upon USF. > > Phase I is just 2012. Price Cap Carriers will be offered $775 per > line to add 4/1 broadband serivce to "unserved" areas that they > weren't otherwise going to serve. They can choose how many lines > this applies to. If the location is "served" on the National > Broadband Map, or if the ILEC *knows* it's served by an unsubsidized > competitor, it's off limits. I think this must be at least 768k > fixed service. So this might be a good time to make sure the mappers > are aware of your service areas, or to think about short-term service > expansion. The date by which you must be on the map isn't set yet, > but it's presumably in 1H2012. > > Phase II starts in 2013. For this, Price Cap Carriers will be > offered support based on a cost model that the FCC will create in > 2012. Once the model is complete, the ILEC will decide if it wants > to take that support for its territory on a state-by-state (all of a > state or nothing) basis. Again, only unserved areas will get > support, though an ILEC can use support to build common plant in an > area that is more than 50% unserved. So a new DSLAM that covers 40% > unserved would not be covered, but ont that covers 60% unserved would > be. So again it's important for WISPs to make their presence > known. If the ILEC turns down the state, USF support goes to the low > bidder. > > Phase III starts in 2018, and will be entirely bid-based, but the > details will be worked out in the future. > > A separate Extremely High Cost fund will allocate up to $100M/year > for locations too costly (by the model) to serve via the standard > subsidy. This will be separately bid, and it's assumed that fixed > wireless and satellite will be the mostly likely technologies. So > this could allow some subsidies to rustic-but-Bell-area WISPs. > > The FCC notes that while this gives ILECs first dibs on funding, it > also takes away Price Cap Carrier USF from areas served by > unsubsidized competitors, so WISPs could theoretically come out > better under the new rules. > > Now here's a catch: "Unsubsidized competitor" is defined as a > provider of both voice and broadband service. It's not entirely > obvious (you try parsing 759 pages of FCC-speak this quickly... ;-) ) > if that applies to the Price Cap Carrier model, or just the rural > Rate of Return case, since the PCCs already offer unsubsidized voice > across most of their territories, and the map isn't about voice. In > the rural Rate of Return Carrier case, voice will be more > important. This does not mean that the WISP must be a CLEC per se; > it might be high-quality (QoS) VoIP offered in conjunction with a > CLEC who has local numbers, for instance. But for some ISPs, this > might be a good time to start thinking about adding voice > service. (My talk at FISPA last month was about the case for whether > an ISP should start up a CLEC.) > > In areas served by rate-of-return carriers, the new rules phase out > (over 3 years) all USF support to an ILEC that is 100% overlapped > (voice and broadband) by an unsubsidized carrier, typically > cable. If there is less than 100% overlap, then support will be > reduced, but the actual methodology is left to be determined via the > Further NPRM. > > So on balance, the FCC has done a lot less harm to the rural WISP > community than it could have, while still encouraging ILECs to deploy > more broadband via subsidies. > > -- > Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com > ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ > +1 617 795 2701 > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! 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