The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau has partially granted petitions for limited waiver filed by NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association and AT&T Services Inc. concerning the FCC’s non-usage rules for Affordable Connectivity Program subscribers who receive free-to-the-end-user service. In partially granting NTCA’s waiver petition, the Bureau has extended the effective date of the ACP non-usage rolling 30-day monitoring requirement until September 15, 2022 for small broadband internet access service providers that serve Tribal ACP customers. The WCB also imposed a retroactive waiver of the Lifeline requirements to January 1, 2022 to monitor usage on a rolling 30-day basis. However, the Bureau denied NTCA’s request for an indefinite waiver of the ACP non-usage monitoring requirement.
In response to AT&T’s waiver request, the Bureau granted AT&T a temporary 60-day waiver of the ACP’s non-usage rules to August 13, 2022 for AT&T’s customers that receive free-to-the-end-user service that uses Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology. However, the Bureau denied AT&T’s request for an indefinite waiver of the ACP rules for this subset of AT&T subscribers.
