[1st-mile-nm] CenturyLink Accepts Nearly $506 Million in Annual Support from Connect America Fund

[John Badal]

Mike

FCC's CAF II money is only offered to price cap carriers (in NM, only CenturyLink, Frontier, and Windstream) and then made available to Eligible Telecomm Carriers ("ETC") in a state where the price cap carrier rejects the money for broadband deployment.   The former 2 carriets accepted the CAF II support for NM and Windstream rejected it.  If you're interested in vying for CAF II support for Windstream's eligible areas in NM you'll need to obtain ETC designation from our PRC and keep you're eye on future notices from the FCC regarding the reverse auction process for that rejected support.  Participation in the reverse auction and the ETC application are not simple and are big tasks for a little company with little regulatory experience.

Alternatively,  the USDA-RUS has several rural broadband grant and loan programs for entities with sound financial and technical backgrounds.  The application processes there are far more predictable and a lot more help is made available during the process, but still can be daunting for the novice.

I suggest you speak with folks who've gone through either and do your studies on the USDA and FCC websites.

John


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone


-------- Original message --------
From: Michael Harris
Date:08/27/2015 5:12 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: Richard Lowenberg
Cc: christopher at newrules.org,1st-mile Nm <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>
Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] CenturyLink Accepts Nearly $506 Million in Annual Support from Connect America Fund

So I see notices of these awards somewhat regularly, and yes, it would be great if the money go go to a local ISP instead of a big telco. Where/how would a local ISP go about applying for this fund or others like it? There is precious little information on the FCC's website, and the USDA grants requests I've read about on here don't just say "go here, download this form, and mail to so-and-so."

Anyone have ideas? Links? Contacts?

-Michael

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org<mailto:rl at 1st-mile.org>> wrote:
Thanks for the comment, Chris.   I easily agree.

Additionally, concerning is that the FCC is subsidizing less than
its stated minimum bandwidth recommendation, with The Connect America Fund
support enabling CenturyLink to deliver broadband at speeds of often
no more than 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps uploads to nearly 1.2 million
homes and businesses in its rural service areas (where the cost of broadband
deployment might otherwise be prohibitive).   This action will only
perpetuate the widening of the rural digital divide for millions.

RL



On 2015-08-27 13:59, Christopher Mitchell wrote:
I would love to see what some of the local providers could do with $11
million. Though it may not reach 25,000 in the same time span that
CenturyLink can owing to its historic monopoly, I suspect the social
benefits would be significantly larger and would actually lead to more
investment in the future. Dumping more money into a monopoly that has
little ambition to ever meet the needs of its captive audience is a
bad decision.

Seeing government put $11 million into a company that offers such a
poor service, whether measured technically or by the customer service,
is upsetting.

Not that this is the fault of the employees, who I have no doubt work
hard. But rather a system designed in the interests of a few to the
detriment of most of us.

Christopher Mitchell
Director, Community Broadband Networks
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

http://www.muninetworks.org [5]

@communitynets
612-276-3456<tel:612-276-3456> x209 [6]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org<mailto:rl at 1st-mile.org>>
wrote:

CenturyLink Accepts Nearly $506 Million in Annual Support from
Connect America Fund to Expand
and Support Broadband for Over 2.3 Million Consumers in 33 States.

The Connect America Fund support will enable CenturyLink to deliver
broadband at speeds of at
least 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps uploads to nearly 1.2 million
homes and businesses in
its rural service areas where the cost of broadband deployment might
otherwise be prohibitive.

"CenturyLink's acceptance of over one-half billion dollars from
the Connect America Fund
represents a huge investment in broadband for its rural
customers," said FCC Chairman Tom
Wheeler. "This is the largest amount accepted by any company to
date - and the opportunities
that modern broadband will provide for the rural communities
CenturyLink serves are priceless."

The allocation in NM:
Number of homes and businesses reached: 25,308
Amount to be spent: $10,942,747


http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0827/DOC-335071A1.pdf

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Michael Harris
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President, Visgence Inc.
www.visgence.com<http://www.visgence.com/>
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