NARUC Telecom Panel Clears RDOF, Rip-and-Replace Resolutions

The NARUC Telecom Committee unanimously agreed Monday to proposed resolutions on the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and extending FCC spectrum authority. It’s critical to keep RDOF awards in the location that won them even if the FCC rejected the winning bidder, said Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Chair Gladys Brown Dutrieuille in an interview Sunday. The draft resolutions, passed at the state utility regulator association’s winter meeting, need NARUC board approval.

The Telecom Committee voted by voice to clear Dutrieuille’s draft resolution on what to do in situations where the FCC rejected an RDOF bidder’s long-form application, as the agency did with SpaceX’s Starlink and LTD Broadband. Commissioners also supported by voice a proposal by Nebraska Commissioner Tim Schram (R) that would urge Congress to extend the FCC’s auction authority beyond March and divert some proceeds to fund next-generation 911 (NG-911) and the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, which repays federally funded carriers required to “rip and replace” equipment from Chinese vendors that may pose a security risk. The resolutions received industry support last week (see 2302100036).

The draft resolutions were revised at a Telecom Staff Subcommittee meeting Sunday. The subcommittee tweaked the auction authority resolution to clarify that funding could support existing NG-911 networks in addition to building new ones. The subcommittee revised the RDOF resolution to acknowledge LTD Broadband challenging its long-form rejection and to note the FCC also partly or completely rejected long forms by entities other than Starlink and LTD.

Pennsylvania was excited to get RDOF support in December 2020 for its many rural areas that need broadband, Dutrieuille told us. But Space-X’s Starlink received $63 million and had its long-form application rejected, she said. “It’s not a small amount,” and the FCC already decided where it was required. “There’s a need there and they identified there’s a need there,” Dutrieuille said, “so we think that they should keep it within our state.” The same applies for other states facing the same situation due to the FCC rejecting long forms of Starlink or LTD Broadband, she said. Those two companies won RDOF bids in about 45 states combined.

There could be complications awarding money from NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program to RDOF-selected areas where the FCC rejected the winning bidder’s long form, said Dutrieuille. “They don’t want to overbuild and gold-plate anything.” It’s not final that Starlink and LTD Broadband won’t get their money since they sought rehearing of the FCC denials.

The draft resolution would urge the FCC to refer the matter to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service to recommend rules and procedures for the RDOF funding that would stay in the areas where a provider was rejected, under the resolution. It’s not new for the joint board to look at such important issues, she said.

"It's through no fault of the states that they are now in this situation,” so they shouldn’t be penalized, said South Dakota Commissioner Chris Nelson (R) at the Telecom Committee meeting. His commission denied eligible telecom carrier status to LTD Broadband due to concerns about the company (see 2210110054). It's too bad the FCC didn't have a more thorough vetting process, said Nelson: The resolution seeks a way to “salvage this.”

NARUC Notebook

Restoring communications in disasters is a priority for the Department of Homeland Security, said John McClain, DHS communications liaison, on a NARUC Telecom Staff Subcommittee panel Sunday. Communications “underpins everything” and is “interconnected with everything,” he said. “Communications is the very first thing that we look for to restore during disasters so we can do coordinated response. If we don’t have it, we’re sending out runners.”