NTCA, USTelecom Seek USF Contribution Relief for RLEC Broadband, Pending Overhaul

NTCA and USTelecom asked the FCC to give rural telcos broadband USF contribution relief while the agency seeks to revise the subsidy system's assessments of industry for funding. The commission should provide "targeted, temporary forbearance from the application of USF contribution requirements ... with respect to broadband Internet access transmission services provided by RLECs pending the completion of comprehensive USF contributions reform," they said in a petition Wednesday in docket 06-122. The groups sought the USF contribution relief for such RLEC broadband services until the commission decides whether any and all broadband services "should be required to contribute to support of federal USF programs or completes some other form of contributions reform." They said regulatory forbearance would have a "de minimis effect" on USF contributions. RLECs are being subjected to "discriminatory and anti-competitive treatment" under a 2005 wireline broadband order that allowed them to offer broadband on a common-carrier basis -- to recover costs for such service via access rates and USF -- but only if they agreed to make USF contributions, NTCA and USTelecom said. Other providers haven't been required to make USF contributions, even under the 2015 net neutrality order that reclassified broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service because the agency provided USF contribution forbearance, they said. A federal-state joint board is looking at USF contribution issues in an effort to make recommendations to the FCC for possible changes. The FCC, CTIA, NTCA and Public Knowledge didn't comment.