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October 21, 2020 12:02 am

FCC To Delay $9 Billion Rural Broadband Push To Fix Data Flaws

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg Law: The Federal Communications Commission is poised to delay $9 billion in rural 5G subsidies for 18 to 24 months so it can fix mapping flaws that bar the agency from determining which areas need the service. The holdup is the most recent delay in the FCC's nine-year effort to pay wireless carriers to expand service to remote areas that otherwise are too unprofitable to serve. The FCC scrapped a similar subsidy effort last year, after it found carriers' maps exaggerated existing coverage areas, meaning locations that needed the subsidies wouldn't have gotten them. The commission plans to vote Oct. 27 on an order that would create the new $9 billion effort to replace the program it scrapped. Under the order, however, the agency would wait to award funds until it evaluates new data it's collecting on rural service locations. The replacement 5G program would distribute twice as many funds as its predecessor. As in the earlier effort, the subsidies would come from the agency's Universal Service Fund, which is raised from monthly fees on consumers' phone bills. It will likely take until at least mid-2022 for the FCC to collect the data, putting the commission on track to start awarding the funding to carriers later that year. That timeline assumes Congress appropriates the $65 million needed to fund the initiative next year, though there is bipartisan support to do so.

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