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DA 18-1028
Released:  October 9, 2018

WIRELINE COMPETITION BUREAU ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF 
CONNECT AMERICA FUND MAP

WC Docket No. 10-90

As the Federal Communications Commission (the Commission) works to close the digital divide, the Wireline Competition Bureau announces that an interactive Connect America Fund Broadband Map (CAF Map) is now available that shows locations where funding recipients have already reported CAF-funded broadband deployment to fixed locations.  The CAF Map illustrates both areas eligible for funding and the specific fixed locations where funding recipients have reported deployment by address and geographic latitude and longitude, including the maximum speed offered and the date of deployment.  The map will be a key source of CAF-supported broadband deployment information for consumers, policymakers, researchers, and others.

The CAF Map is available here: www.usac.org/hc/tools.

The Commission’s CAF program is designed to ensure that consumers in rural, insular, and high-cost areas have access to modern communications networks capable of providing voice and broadband service, both fixed and mobile, at rates that are reasonably comparable to those in urban areas.  

The CAF Map contains broadband deployment data from carriers participating in the following four CAF programs:

· Connect America Fund Phase II (CAF Phase II) provides funding to certain phone companies known as “price cap carriers” based on a cost model to build broadband to a specific number of fixed, eligible locations.  

· Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) provides funding to certain smaller phone companies that accepted support calculated by a cost model to build broadband to a specific number of fixed, eligible locations. 

· Connect America Fund-Broadband Loop Support (CAF-BLS) provides funding for other smaller phone companies known as “rate-of-return carriers” based on a carrier’s costs and other financial data, and requires carriers that had not met a certain deployment threshold to build broadband to a specific number of fixed, eligible locations.  

· The Alaska Plan provides funding to rate-of-return carriers to build broadband to fixed locations in rural and remote parts of Alaska.
 
The CAF Map will be updated with additional information as it is certified by carriers participating in these CAF programs, and as more CAF programs are added to the map (such as the CAF Phase II auction).  The map currently displays broadband deployment as of December 31, 2017, as certified by carriers by March 1, 2018.

The CAF Map is published by the administrator of the Universal Service Fund, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), with data submitted annually by funding recipients using USAC’s High Cost Universal Broadband (HUBB) portal.  USAC independently verifies a sample of reported locations each year to monitor carriers’ compliance with their deployment milestones.

– FCC –