Industry Urges CPUC Not to Delay Spending U.S. Broadband Cash Over ACP

Don’t wait to see if Congress finds funding for the affordable connectivity program (ACP), the Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) urged the California Public Utilities Commission in comments Wednesday. The consumer group supported a petition from The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office to modify a 2022 decision that made rules for the California commission’s federal funding account (FFA), which uses broadband funding from the U.S. government (see 2404150062). The petition “accurately highlights that the current FFA rules will become outdated shortly with the anticipated end of the ACP, and it reasonably requests that the Commission modify the FFA rules to support ongoing broadband affordability,” CforAT said in docket R.20-09-001. “The Commission should not delay based on the efforts currently underway to extend the ACP, as the fate of these efforts is uncertain, and the status quo would result in loss of service for program participants.” The CPUC can hit the brakes should ACP get money, it added. But the telecom industry said granting the petition would delay money going out the door to expand broadband. Also, the industry urged the CPUC to avoid using ACP's possible end as an excuse to relitigate settled issues, echoing comments it made days earlier on a separate TURN petition seeking changes to a different grant program (see 2405140037). Thanks to flexible FFA rules, the CPUC "received an unprecedented amount of interest with over 480 applications and at least two applications per county,” commented AT&T. Granting TURN and PAO’s petition will only further delay awards for the applications that already have been pending for eight months, said the carrier: But the CPUC must make awards by Dec. 24 or send the cash back to the U.S. Frontier Communications said the CPUC should “swiftly deny” the petition. "The Commission should not allow the state’s broadband infrastructure deployment objectives to be diverted or delayed by Petitioners’ agenda to revisit rejected policy proposals addressing affordability." AVX Networks and Cal.net piled on. “There is no reasonable basis to delay FFA awards indefinitely while the Commission considers whether to add a completely new requirement on FFA award recipients,” they said. A group of small rural local exchange carriers agreed. “This Petition would compromise the efficacy of this time-sensitive federal grant program, potentially squandering critical federal support for rural infrastructure deployment and impairing the state’s efforts to close the digital divide,” the LECs said.