RWA Raises 5G Fund Concerns

Rural Wireless Association representatives spoke with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff on the group’s concerns about the commission’s proposal for a 5G Fund (see 2309110053). If carriers lose USF high-cost support for their service areas because of a 5G Fund reverse auction, “significant investments in their network and their communities will be forever stranded without support, which is a severe waste of taxpayer dollars that are being used to build out these 5G networks,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. “These are the same carriers that have been using their legacy high-cost support to upgrade and maintain their networks from analog to 2G to 3G to 4G and now 5G over many decades,” RWA said.