RWA: Mobility Fund Phase II Could Leave Some Areas Without Service

Some rural areas could be left without wireless service if the Federal Communications Commission approves the latest proposal for the Connect America Mobility Fund Phase II, cautions the Rural Wireless Association.

Some wireless carriers in high-cost rural areas currently receive funding through the traditional high-cost universal service fund, which also covers landline carriers, but moving forward the plan is to create separate funds for mobile and fixed service. RWA’s concerns come as the FCC gets set to vote soon on the mobility fund. The term “Phase II” has been applied to that fund to differentiate it from a previous one-time program that awarded funding to a relatively small number of wireless carriers through a reverse auction process to test the concept of using that type of auction to award funding. Mobility Fund Phase II is expected to direct Universal Service dollars to high-cost rural areas where no unsubsidized competitor offers service at speeds of at least 5 Mbps downstream/ 1 Mbps upstream, the RWA notes. Qualifying areas are expected to be included in a reverse auction that will award funding to the network operator that agrees to bring service at speeds of at least 10/1 Mbps for the lowest amount of support. One of RWA’s concerns is that it could take winning bidders a few years to build the new network and if the winner does not currently provide some type of service in the area, there is a danger that all current carriers could pull out before the new network is available.