WISPA Opposes CenturyLink Government Subsidies As Connect America Fund Draws Telco Interest Tipped by treichhart 
Earlier this week we noted that Frontier Communications was the first ISP to claim government subsidies from the Connect America Fund, promising to deploy broadband to all of their unconnected territory homes in exchange for a cool $72 million in taxpayer money. Such subsidies have historically been fraught with problems, with government never being very good at tracking how such subsidies are spent, and ISPs often not very good at actually using that money as intended (see: the E-rate slush fund). Now CenturyLink appears poised to grab some of the Connect America Fund money for themselves -- a move that has riled the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA). A WISPA press statement notes that CenturyLink is looking for a waiver for the funds that would allow them to only use a portion of the money to bring broadband to new users. WISPA also points out that the history of government telco subsides is a long and corrupt one, while noting many WISPs have been bringing connectivity to these same areas for years without an additional dime: "Fixed wireless providers are serving many areas that no other provider will. We do this because it is the best thing for the customers who live in those areas. The vast majority of these buildouts were done with no government funding whatsoever," said WISPA President Elizabeth Bowles. "CenturyLink is doing this so they can get subsidies in areas where there is already service -- areas where they know there is a market because WISPs built it without federal support. They do this rather than build at their own expense. Any government funds for broadband should be used as they were intended, which is to build in areas that are truly unserved." There's roughly $300 million available during Phase I of the Connect America Fund program -- money interested telcos have to apply for before the end of this month. It has yet to be made clear if the FCC actually intends to make sure this money goes to improving broadband for once -- instead of -- as it has been for a generation -- simply being dumped into telco coffers with everyone hoping for the best.
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  LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 |  Connect America Fund another giveaway to big telco
WISPA made a good point about being excluded. I guess they didn't payoff the right politicians.
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»www.mittromney.com/s/repeal-and-···bamacare
»www.mittromney.com/issues/health-care | |
| Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Government waste WISPA is probably right that the Connect America Fund won't be used to bring broadband to the truly unserved. | |
| Reviews:
 ·Callcentric
| Doesn't work The idea is silly anyway, because it simply allows private companies to wait it out, than invest their own money.
In reality, these non-serviced Americans are a prime case for a community owned network.
If a carrier is unwilling to serve customers, then we the people should reserve the right to connect our own communities - end of story. | |
|  | jdmm72
join:2002-02-12
Nitro, WV | Re: Doesn't work Unfortunately, most Americans citizens would rather whine and cry for gub'ment to fix the problem, as evidenced in the Frontier comments on the other article.
"I done did pay my dues, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie." | |
| | | | | Re: Doesn't work Wanting something back for your tax money is unreasonable? | |
| | | | jdmm72
join:2002-02-12
Nitro, WV | Re: Doesn't work Wanting anything from the government except defense and conflict arbitration is unreasonable, but we're way past that now. | |
| | | | | Reviews:
·Callcentric
| Re: Doesn't work said by jdmm72:Wanting anything from the government except defense and conflict arbitration is unreasonable, but we're way past that now.
RWers seem to assume that the sole purpose of government is to cater for the rich and to wage war, under the guise of defense. The $700 billion annual war complex and wasting literally trillions on pointless wars and policing the world, is not what our Constitution is about.
Without the Fed, the majority of red states would be 2nd world nations and bankrupt. The vast majority of red states ironically receive more than they contribute in Federal taxes.
In addition, that does not even include all of the military (i.e. government jobs) that so many GOP states HEAVILY rely on for their bread and butter. This is what is so laughable about the GOP stance regarding the fed, taxation, and government. | |
| | | | | | jdmm72
join:2002-02-12
Nitro, WV Reviews:
 ·Suddenlink
| Re: Doesn't work said by Telco:RWers seem to assume that the sole purpose of government is to cater for the rich and to wage war, under the guise of defense. The $700 billion annual war complex and wasting literally trillions on pointless wars and policing the world, is not what our Constitution is about.
Without the Fed, the majority of red states would be 2nd world nations and bankrupt. The vast majority of red states ironically receive more than they contribute in Federal taxes.
In addition, that does not even include all of the military (i.e. government jobs) that so many GOP states HEAVILY rely on for their bread and butter. This is what is so laughable about the GOP stance regarding the fed, taxation, and government.
That's great an all, but I'm not GOP. And I am railing against money that comes to my state. My state is a welfare state. The Frontier subsidies, yeah, much of that will likely go to WV. The Heartland Corridor train project, that I mentioned in the Frontier article, again, a very sizeable portion came to my state.
I work hard for my money, and since I'm a self-employed small business owner, I get to pay double SS, FICA and other taxes. So when taxes go up 1% for you, they go up 2% for me, 5% for you = 10% for me. I get to make both the employee and employer contribution.
And then there is waste. WV just spent something like $134 million of FEDERAL money for routers for schools, firestations, libraries, etc. We have only 1.855 million citizens in our entire state. Does that make any sense? That was after the $30 million that they received in 2006 (I believe) from the Federal gub'ment for their broadband fund, that I believe is still locked up in red-tape. | |
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| | Waste, Pure and Simple Putting millions into DSL operated by a company with a terrible reputation is a really bad idea. We electrified the country by recognizing coops are far superior (both in terms of customer service AND fiscal responsibility) than big companies that hire armies of lobbyists. | |
| dynodbPremium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN | In other words... ...WISPA is feigning outrage because they wanted the money for themselves.
You can bet that had the wireless providers been offered the funds, their objections to subsidies would quickly disappear.
The "Connect America Fund" is simply the obsolete, historically mismanaged USF renamed. Government programs (and their associated taxes / fees) never die, even when their goals (in the case of universal POTS) were long ago achieved. | |
| | | | Re: In other words... The goal is to connect Americans with telecommunications. Making the network larger provides more room for the economy to grow -- imagine how much worse our economy would be if people in rural areas still did not have electricity.
Just because it is mismanaged does not mean a program is not necessary for building the infrastructure on which the economy operates. | |
| | jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2 | said by dynodb:...WISPA is feigning outrage because they wanted the money for themselves. Not true of most WISP's. Other than a small handful of very large wireless operators, most WISP's are small operations which were created due to a void that the larger companies have left, many of which already have the money to build the networks without taxpayer money. Very few WISP's are interested in hand-outs and all the red tape that goes along with it. But we also don't want to see the large lazy rich companies get huge amounts of taxpayer money either.
It is a triple whammy for us. First, we typically use our own savings to build these networks while our hard-earned money is taken from us through taxes. Second, those taxes are given away to subside the very companies that created the problem in the first place. And third, the companies who get the handouts end up taking away our customers because they can offer taxpayer subsided service that we built with our own money.
All that typing to basically say your statement is incorrect when it comes to almost every small WISP out there. I'm all for taxpayer money spent to get people better connected, as long as that money doesn't stomp all over the small, locally owned and operated ISP's in an unfair manner. I'd rather not see ANY large corporation get a single penny of grant money much less tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. I think that it should be small grants to small operators who can use the money to deliver service to twice as many people at half the cost per customer and growing permanent local jobs, rather than just a few thousand temporary construction jobs that will go away in a couple years. | |
| | khohhof
join:2001-08-01
Glen Ellyn, IL | Read the WISPA filing, it's actually pretty good reading.
The objection was to CenturyLink wanting subsidies not only for unserved areas, but areas already served by WISPs.
The CAF rules were clear - the National Broadband Map was the bible for what areas are served and not served, and the only criterion was whether broadband was available. CenturyLink wanted a waiver to get subsidized in areas the map showed as already having broadband from providers that received no subsidies. They also wanted to claim that some WISPs were too expensive, had usage caps, or served primarily businesses, so CenturyLink should get subsidies to compete unfairly with these local companies that don't get subsidies and generally provide better customer service than out-of-state owned CenturyLink.
CL should be satisfied getting money to deploy their DSL in unserved areas, and not be greedy wanting subsidies in areas that already have broadband from a local provider. | |
| | | | | So frustrating. We don't want handouts. We don't NEED handouts. We do all of our upgrades and buildouts by SAVING money and then INVESTING it in our networks. Why can't Century-Link and Frontier use that basic business tactic too?
I really don't like it when the Feds take our tax money and then hand it to our competitors to build out in our coverage areas, especially when we've been trying to get our coverage map listed for a year and a half on that oh-so-accurate Broadband Map.
On the other hand, the 'govt-backed Pork-Corp vs the Little Guy' plays really well out here in rural America. Good marketing angle for us. | |
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1 edit | Thanks for this Thanks for this | |
| | | The Waiver While the question here isn't if the USF should have even become the CAF, the issue here is the justification used by the filed waiver from Century Link. I am in one of those waiver zones so I sent an email to their legal people asking for the specific areas they felt I didn't cover. They reiterated that we are overstating our coverage areas and that nothing over 5 miles is even realistic for radio to provide National Broadband Plan (NBM) speeds. They put two huge red arrows to areas that were outside of my WISP map, that's as specific as they would get. Zero justification for their challenges.
Well I'm sorry but one of those arrows pointed right at the base of one of my towers, they obviously took a circle and put it in the middle of my 30 mile long coverage area and said 'he can't get there'. The problem is I have 17 towers over that 30 miles. The burden of proof to get a waiver is to have some credibility in your claim, this one had none, they refused to explain their 31 households that they were exempt from.
So allow me to vaguely extrapolate my thought like they did for mine: Century Link likely drew a line 36,000 feet from their last DSLAM and said lets get some of that tax money to pay for some new equipment instead of using our billions in reserve. Sure the people from 10,000 feet back to the next switch won't get above NBM speeds but we'll just claim that DSL gives 7MB in most areas and charge everyone the same while getting a subsidy for being rural.
The arrogance of the Telco Industry who initially thought the Internet was a joke until WISP's and ISP's made it big, now wants to use an outdated fund meant to monopolize uniform phone service to have an unfair advantage against an already existing free market service. It's the hostile takeover of another industry no one invited them to, the Internet.
note to Telco's: no one bailed me out when dial-up died, landline service is all but obsolete and you saw it too late, you're not too big to fail even if the government thinks you are. | |
| | | Getting on the National Broadband Map We've submitted our coverage area to that site over and over. Never hear back, never see it appear. Several other WISPs in Oregon are also not listed.
Now Frontier, the local ILEC, is getting handed millions to build out under our coverage area. | |
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