LTD Wants Release of Minn. ETC Designation; State Telecom Group 'Pleased'

LTD Broadband asked to partly relinquish its eligible telecom carrier designation in Minnesota due to the FCC canceling the company’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support. In a Wednesday letter to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, CEO Corey Hauer said the FCC decision “has left us disappointed and puzzled, as [it] seems to contradict the very purpose of RDOF: to connect unserved and underserved Americans.” LTD seeks to give up ETC status only for RDOF, not for the Connect America Fund Phase II, he clarified. Hauer’s letter marks a turnaround from November when he told the state commission that he still wanted to defend his company and keep the ETC designation (see 2311160039). State telecom and electric industry groups had asked the PUC to revoke the company’s ETC certificate (docket 22-221). The Minnesota Telecom Alliance “is pleased to see this contested case come to closure,” MTA President Brent Christensen said Thursday. “LTD’s decision … is very appropriate given the recent decisions of the FCC.” Hauer told us in an email Thursday that his company “doesn't intend to relinquish ETC designation in any other state.” It's doing so in Minnesota, said Hauer, because MTA and the Minnesota Rural Electric Association (MREA), supported by Minnesota’s attorney general office and commerce department, “refused to pause” the proceeding to revoke the broadband company's ETC status while LTD challenged the FCC decision at the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. “They did so under the false premise that we were in imminent danger of being awarded RDOF funds without … saying how much they hate competition and how only MTA or MREA members are capable of building broadband networks," he said. "I am not going to let them waste more of our time and money.” If LTD wins against the FCC on appeal, “I expect to aggressively build our RDOF areas in entirety,” the CEO added.