§54.313. Annual reporting requirements and quarterly performance reporting for high-cost recipients. — Inbound Citations

(1) Recipients of Fixed ACF support shall be subject to the reporting obligations set forth in §§ 54.9, 54.10, 54.11, 54.313, and 54.314.

(1) Mobile providers receiving Alaska Connect Fund support shall be subject to the reporting, certification, and other obligations set forth in §§ 54.9, 54.10, 54.11, 54.313, and 54.314.

(a) Recipients of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support shall be subject to the reporting obligations set forth in §§ 54.313, 54.314, and 54.316.

(iv) Provide the information and certifications required by § 54.313(a);

(2) If an eligible telecommunications carrier or state submits the annual certification required by this section after October 1 but within 4 business days, the eligible telecommunications carrier subject to the certification will not receive a reduction in support if the eligible telecommunications carrier and its holding company, operating companies, and affiliates as reported pursuant to § 54.313(a)(4) have not missed the October 1 deadline in any prior year.

(3) An ETC that certifies the information required by this section within 4 business days of March 1 will not receive a reduction in support if the ETC and its holding company, operating companies, and affiliates as reported pursuant to § 54.313(a)(4) in their report due July 1 of the prior year, have not missed the deadline in any prior year.

(3) Recipients of Fixed ACF support shall comply with methodologies and non-compliance measures adopted pursuant to § 54.313(a)(6), as of the date the Alaska Connect Fund Order, FCC 24-116 was adopted, unless and until the Wireline Competition Bureau adopts network performance testing methodologies and non-compliance measures that account for unique aspects of Alaska.

(2) If an eligible telecommunications carrier or state submits the annual certification required by this section after October 1 but within 4 business days, the eligible telecommunications carrier subject to the certification will not receive a reduction in support if the eligible telecommunications carrier and its holding company, operating companies, and affiliates as reported pursuant to § 54.313(a)(4) have not missed the October 1 deadline in any prior year.

(c) Alaskan rate-of-return carriers receiving support from the Alaska Plan pursuant to § 54.306 are exempt from paragraph (a) of this section and are instead required to offer voice and broadband service with latency suitable for real-time applications, including Voice over internet Protocol, and usage capacity that is reasonably comparable to comparable offerings in urban areas, at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates for comparable offerings in urban areas, subject to any limitations in access to backhaul as described in § 54.313(g). Alaska Plan recipients' specific broadband deployment and speed obligations shall be governed by the terms of their approved performance plans as described in § 54.306(b). Alaska Plan recipients must also comply with paragraph (b) of this section.

(h) Mobile providers that received support under the Alaska Plan for coverage of newly ineligible areas and that wish to retain their support level must, for any support attributed to such newly ineligible areas, use their Alaska Connect Fund support to cover a comparable number of otherwise uncovered hex-9s elsewhere, subject to claw back in their support if they do not do so. Mobile providers must incorporate their comparable areas into their performance plans under the Alaska Connect Fund for Wireless Telecommunications Bureau approval. Specifically, each mobile provider must remove the ineligible hex-9s from its commitment, and in a separate category in the performance plan, specify how many comparable hex-9s it commits to cover, by census tract.

(1) For areas where a mobile provider may lose support because an area is deemed ineligible after the provider's Alaska Connect Fund performance plan has been approved, the mobile provider will have an opportunity to retain support by committing to cover a comparable number of uncovered hex-9s elsewhere. As mobile providers discover ineligible hex-9s after their performance plans are approved, they must remove those ineligible hex-9s from their hex-9 commitments in their performance plans and reflect the new number of comparable hex-9s in the comparable hex-9 commitments category in their new, proposed performance plans. The mobile provider must submit new performance plans whenever they need new comparable hex-9s approved. The mobile provider must provide a notation in the performance plan for the comparable hex-9s, identifying which census tracts the ineligible hex-9s are located and how many of those hex-9s are being replaced by any particular group of comparable hex-9s. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, in coordination with the Office of Economics and Analytics, may require additional clarifying information that allows identification and determination of which comparable hex-9s are replacing which group of ineligible hex-9s. All inaccessible hex-9s and updated performance plans must be reported before their buildout milestones.

(2) Where a mobile provider commits to cover the same number of uncovered hex-9s as the area that was newly deemed ineligible, the coverage shall be deemed comparable.

(3) Where a mobile provider claims that fewer uncovered hex-9s should be deemed as comparable to the number of hex-9s deemed ineligible, the provider must provide justification that the smaller number of hex-9s is comparable to the number of hex-9s that the provider was using support to cover. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, in coordination with the Office of Economics and Analytics, may determine whether a mobile provider is covering a comparable number of hex-9s.

(4) Once approved, comparable areas will be treated as part of the mobile provider's single-support areas, subject to the deployment obligations and performance requirements that apply for those areas.

(5) Where an Alaska Connect Fund mobile support recipient covers a new, uncovered hex-9, it will be considered a single-support area attributed to the mobile provider that showed coverage to that hex-9 first, based on Broadband Data Collection availability data, or, in case more than one mobile provider provided coverage for the same area in the same data set or one provider's earlier filed data is deemed inaccurate, whichever provider has its updated performance plan accepted first. Where two providers cover the same hex-9 and one provider claims that the area is inaccessible for testing, but the other provider does not, the area would become a part of the latter provider's single-support area, and the former provider would have to cover the same number of hex-9s elsewhere.

(6) If a mobile provider discovers that some areas are inaccessible during required speed testing or during an audit, the mobile provider will be in noncompliance for those hex-9s, and potentially additional hex-9s if the inaccessible hex-9s were selected through random sampling.

(i) Phase down schedule for mobile competitive eligible telecommunications carrier Alaska Connect Fund extended support.

(1) Mobile providers subject to phase down or proportional phase down shall have phase down occur on the following schedule:

(i) For the first twelve months after the phase down start date, each such competitive eligible telecommunications carrier shall receive two-thirds of the monthly support amount the carrier received pursuant to the Alaska Plan.

(ii) For the thirteenth through twenty-fourth months after the phase down start date, each such competitive eligible telecommunications carrier shall receive one-third of the monthly support amount the carrier received pursuant to the Alaska Plan.

(iii) By the twenty-fifth month, no such competitive eligible telecommunications carrier shall receive universal service support pursuant to this section.

(2) Competitive eligible telecommunications carriers providing mobile service that receive support under the Alaska Plan pursuant to § 54.317(e), and that are eligible to receive extended support under this section but do not opt in to receive extended support pursuant to paragraph (b) of this section, shall have their high-cost support end with Alaska Plan on December 31, 2026.

(3) Competitive eligible telecommunications carriers previously receiving mobile support pursuant to § 54.317(e) for an area newly ineligible under the Alaska Connect Fund that do not have an updated performance plan approved by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau with comparable areas for the Alaska Connect Fund will have their proportional support phased down, beginning 90 days after being notified by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau that they are receiving support in an ineligible area or by January 1, 2027, whichever is later. Competitive eligible telecommunications carriers that have new performance plans with comparable areas approved by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau may receive restoration of the support that was phased down for the areas that the comparable areas replaced.

(4) [Reserved]

(5) Competitive eligible telecommunication carriers providing mobile service that receive support under the Alaska Plan pursuant to § 54.317(e) but are found by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to be ineligible for extended support under the Alaska Connect Fund, shall not have their high cost support for mobile services phased down. Their support under the Alaska Plan will be terminated as of December 31, 2026. If the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau determines that an Alaska Plan mobile provider did not meet its Alaska Plan buildout obligations after the commencement of the Alaska Connect Fund, and also determines that the mobile provider is not eligible to receive Alaska Connect Fund mobile support, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau can take all actions necessary to recover Alaska Connect Fund support, including those set forth in § 54.320(c) and (d). This does not impact any separate actions related to § 54.320(c) and (d) with respect to the Alaska Plan final milestone.

(i) If an eligible telecommunications carrier has a compliance gap of at least five percent but less than 15 percent of the number of locations that the eligible telecommunications carrier is required to have built out to or, in the case of Alaska Plan mobile-carrier participants, population covered by the specified technology, middle mile, and speed of service in the carrier's approved performance plan, by the interim milestone, the Wireline Competition Bureau or Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, will issue a letter to that effect. Starting three months after the issuance of this letter, the eligible telecommunications carrier will be required to file a report every three months identifying the geocoded locations to which the eligible telecommunications carrier has newly deployed facilities capable of delivering broadband meeting the requisite requirements with Connect America support in the previous quarter, or, in the case of Alaska Plan mobile-carrier participants, the populations to which the competitive eligible telecommunications carrier has extended or upgraded service meeting their approved performance plan and obligations. Eligible telecommunications carriers that do not file these quarterly reports on time will be subject to support reductions as specified in § 54.313(j). The eligible telecommunications carrier must continue to file quarterly reports until the eligible telecommunications carrier reports that it has reduced the compliance gap to less than five percent of the required number of locations (or population, if applicable) for that interim milestone and the Wireline Competition Bureau or Wireless Telecommunications Bureau issues a letter to that effect.