On July 24, 2023, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”), seeking comment on how to address the immediate needs of legacy rate of return support mechanisms. Specifically, the NPRM focuses on three key areas: 1) a variety of reforms to legacy support mechanisms and appropriate funding, so that rate of return carriers are subject to a smaller reduction when the budget control mechanism applies; 2) appropriate deployment obligations for carriers receiving Connect America Fund Broadband Loop Support (“CAF BLS”) when the current deployment term ends this year; and 3) methodologies for preventing duplication of support between legacy high-cost universal support mechanisms and funding provided by other federal and state agencies for the deployment of broadband. On August 18, 2023, the NPRM was published in the Federal Register, which stated that Comments are due on or before September 18, 2023, and Reply Comments are due on or before October 2, 2023.

If you would like to discuss this further, or would like to file Comments or Reply Comments, please contact Dee Herman at [email protected] or Shannon Forchheimer at [email protected].