Connect America Fund, Alaska Connect Fund, Connect America Fund-Alaska Plan et al.

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 54</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket Nos. 10-90, 23-328, 16-271, 14-58, and 09-197; WT Docket No. 10-208; FCC 25-61; FR ID 320214]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Connect America Fund, Alaska Connect Fund, Connect America Fund—Alaska Plan et al.</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) further refines the Alaska high-cost mobile-support programs to ensure efficient use of scarce universal service funds that will bring 5G-NR to Americans living, working, and traveling in Alaska. This document grants in part a Petition for Reconsideration and Clarification by GCI Communications Corp. (GCI) of the Alaska Connect Fund (ACF), granting it in part by modifying and clarifying several of its rules. These actions help better realign the requirements and expectations of the ACF with its intended universal service goals. This document also makes a clarifying correction to one ACF rule to better reflect its purpose expressed in the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order.</E> </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective January 9, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Matthew Warner, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division, at <E T="03">Matthew.Warner@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-2419; Grant B. Lukas, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division, at <E T="03">Grant.Lukas@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-1057; and <E T="03">ACF@fcc.gov</E> or <E T="03">AK.Plan@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration and Clarification and Order</E> in WC Docket Nos. 10-90, 23-328, 16-271, 14-58, 09-197; and WT Docket No. 10-208; FCC 25-61; adopted on September 25, 2025, and released on September 26, 2025. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-61A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis.</E> As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), the Federal Communications Commission published an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) in the Alaska Connect Fund Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund NPRM</E> ), released in October 2023. The Commission sought written public comment on the proposals in the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund NPRM,</E> including comment on the IFRA. No comments were filed addressing the IRFA. In November 2024, the Commission released the Alaska Connect Fund Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order</E> ) and published a FRFA, as well as an IRFA for the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ). On January 5, 2025, GCI Communication Corp. (GCI) filed a Petition for Clarification and Reconsideration of the Alaska Connect Fund Order (GCI ACF Petition), which included issues impacting small entities. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) then sought public comment on GCI's petition in a <E T="03">Public Notice</E> released March 19, 2025. One party filed comments in response to the GCI ACF Petition. No relevant issues impacting small entities were raised in comments to the GCI ACF Petition. This Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) incorporates the FRFA for the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order,</E> and reflects the actions the Commission takes in the <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration and Clarification</E> to revise certain rules established by the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order,</E> conforms to the RFA, and it (or summaries thereof) will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document does not contain new or modified information collection requirements as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, the Commission notes that pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we previously sought specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Congressional Review Act.</E> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is non-major under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of this Order on Reconsideration and Clarification, Waiver Order, and Order to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> In this Order, the Commission further refines its Alaska high-cost mobile- support programs to ensure efficient use of scarce universal service funds that will bring 5G-NR to Americans living, working, and traveling in Alaska. To this end, the item addresses a Petition by GCI Communication Corp. (GCI) seeking reconsideration and clarification of various aspects of the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order,</E> which the Commission adopted last year. Like its Alaska Plan predecessor, the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order</E> established a high-cost universal service support program designed to address the distinct challenges of providing mobile voice and broadband service in the hard-to-serve rural and remote areas of Alaska. The Alaska Connect Fund (ACF) will provide ongoing and certain support through 2034 to mobile wireless providers that currently receive high-cost support pursuant to the Alaska Plan. The refinements to the ACF adopted will better ensure the continued deployment of affordable and reliable high-speed broadband services to communities throughout Alaska. The Commission grants in part and denies in part the GCI ACF Petition by making certain modifications and providing further clarification of ACF rules and requirements for mobile providers. Specifically, the Commission (1) clarifies certain details of mobile providers' performance plan requirements and commitments; (2) provides additional clarification regarding the deployment goals of 5G-NR at 35/3 Mbps for single-support areas and 5/1 Mbps for duplicate-support areas, while denying GCI's request to limit the ACF deployment goals solely to areas with Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs); (3) clarifies the extent of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau's (WTB's or Bureau's) discretion to determine a mobile provider's ineligibility for the ACF due to noncompliance with its Alaska Plan commitments; (4) modifies and clarifies rules governing the categorization of eligible and ineligible areas; (5) clarifies that providers have no service obligations for areas that are deemed ineligible for ACF support; (6) eliminates and modifies several compliance obligations regarding the annual infrastructure data filing requirement for ACF mobile providers, the ACF speed test data submission deadline, and the reasonably comparable rate requirement; and (7) addresses the extent to which ACF support and obligations will transfer as a result of mergers or other transactions among participating providers. Finally, the Commission corrects one rule to better reflect the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> In 2016, the Commission adopted the Alaska Plan, establishing flexible universal service rules in order to account for distinct conditions in Alaska, in recognition that rural and high-cost areas of Alaska are some of the hardest and most costly to serve in the country. The Alaska Plan—built on a proposal submitted by the Alaska Telephone Association (ATA)—addressed support for both fixed and mobile voice and broadband service in high-cost areas in the state of Alaska. Given the distinct climate and geographic conditions of Alaska, the Commission found it to be in the public interest to offer Alaska providers the option of receiving fixed amounts of high-cost support over ten years in exchange for participants' individualized commitments to maintain or improve fixed and mobile broadband service in the state. The Alaska Plan was expected to bring broadband to as many as 111,302 fixed locations and 133,788 mobile consumers by the end of the 10-year term on December 31, 2026. Due to the approaching end of support under the Alaska Plan, on January 4, 2023, ATA petitioned for the next version of the Alaska Plan to ensure ongoing support and help bring 5G to remote Alaska. On November 1, 2024, the Commission adopted the <E T="03">Alaska Connect Fund Order,</E> establishing a new high-cost support program—the ACF—that would provide ongoing and certain support for mobile wireless services in Alaska through 2034. The ACF will play an important role in ensuring that Alaskans have access to reliable, advanced mobile service, particularly in upgrading networks to 5G and encouraging deployment to unserved and underserved areas. The Commission adopted a two-phase approach for mobile service. The approach balanced the importance of giving mobile providers certainty of funding in particular areas to help meet the Commission's goals of 5G deployment, with the need to ensure funding is not being used for last generation technologies ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 2G and 3G). It also targeted funding to areas where it is needed the most and addressed concerns of duplicate support. The framework the Commission adopted for mobile support relies on the improved mobile coverage data obtained in the Broadband Data Collection (BDC), which is reflected on t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 117k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━