U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., joined a bipartisan group of 56 senators in sending a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging continued efforts to advance broadband access in rural areas to give more Georgians and Americans the opportunity to obtain affordable Internet services.
 
In their bipartisan letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and commissioners Michael O’Rielly and Mignon Clyburn, the senators argue that outdated rules force consumers to sign up for services they may not want or need.
 
“Rural Georgians have been waiting too long for the FCC to address this issue,” said Isakson.  “Standalone Internet services should be available to all Americans at this point, and dependable rural access to broadband services are a necessity in this day and age, not a luxury.”
 
Under current rules, Universal Service Fund support for broadband in rural areas comes with the outdated requirement that customers also sign up for traditional landline phone service. When rural customers decide they no longer need traditional landline phone service in favor of wireless or Internet-based phone services, rural communities served by smaller telecommunication providers lose access to USF support for broadband deployment, even if the customer continues to pay for broadband Internet service.
 
In their letter, the senators note that this is not their first request to address this matter. “On May 6, 2014, 133 Members of Congress – 44 Senators and 89 House Members – signed bipartisan letters calling on the FCC to make tailored modifications to USF support for the delivery of broadband services to consumers in high-cost areas of the United States served by small, rural rate-of-return-regulated local exchange carriers,” the senators wrote.
 
In May 2015, similar letters were sent to the FCC by 61 U.S. senators and 115 U.S. representatives.
 
The full text of the letter is below.
 
The Honorable Ajit Pai, Michael O’Rielly, and Mignon Clyburn Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
 
Dear Chairman Pai, Commissioner O’Rielly, and Commissioner Clyburn:
 
We write to encourage the Federal Communications Commission to continue working to advance broadband deployment in high-cost rural areas to give rural Americans the opportunity to obtain affordable broadband.
 
Congress has expressed broad support for modernizing the federal Universal Service Fund toward this goal. On May 6, 2014, 133 Members of Congress-44 Senators and 89 House Members - signed bipartisan letters calling on the FCC to make tailored modifications to USF support for the delivery of broadband services to consumers in high-cost areas of the United States served by small, rural rate-of-return-regulated local exchange carriers.  Similar letters were sent in May 2015 by more than 176 Members of Congress, including 61 Senators and 115 House Members.
 
The shared concern expressed in those letters was that rural consumers who wished to “cut the cord” on traditional voice “plain old telephone service” and opt instead to obtain only fixed broadband services could not do so. As those letters noted, the FCC’s old rules unfortunately tied USF support to a consumer’s purchase of POTS, making it impossible for millions of rural consumers to obtain affordable “standalone broadband” without buying traditional telephone service as well.
 
We appreciate the steps taken by the FCC last year to address this concern. However, we are still hearing frustration about the prices for and the availability of standalone broadband. Many operators remain unable or unwilling to offer such broadband because their prices would still be unreasonably high even after the reforms. Other operators may offer standalone broadband, but the costs they are forced to recover from rural consumers far exceed what urban consumers would pay for the same service.
 
All this means that, despite the reforms last year, millions of rural consumers are still not seeing widespread affordable standalone broadband services due to insufficient USF support. Meanwhile, the limited USF budget also reduced the amount of funding available to carriers electing new “model-based” USF support, resulting in tens of thousands of rural consumers receiving slower broadband speeds than intended by the model or not gaining access to broadband at all.
 
We are concerned that the lack of sufficient resources in the reformed High-Cost mechanism may be undermining the desired effect of the reforms and falling short of the statutory mandate that reasonably comparable services at reasonably comparable rates be available to rural and urban Americans alike. We therefore encourage you to consider any changes to the High-Cost mechanism that may be necessary to ensure it can achieve the goal of making affordable broadband available to Americans in high-cost rural areas.