FCC Waives Enhanced A-CAM Rule to Facilitate Deployment in West Virginia

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) waives the FCC’s rules, on its own accord, to include in West Side Telephone Company’s (West Side’s) Enhanced Alternative Connect America Model (Enhanced A-CAM) offer locations that would otherwise have been treated as served by a competitor due to a federally enforceable commitment by ClearFiber. This limited waiver applies only to the locations within West Side’s West Virginia study area where ClearFiber is no longer subject to a grant from the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service to deploy broadband. RUS has recently determined that ClearFiber would not be able to complete its deployment obligations, and reduced ClearFiber’s grant accordingly, resulting in some West Virginia locations no longer being funded through RUS. Therefore, approximately 180 locations within West Side Telephone’s service area that were treated as served by a competitor when the FCC announced Enhanced A-CAM offers are no longer subject to a federally enforceable commitment.