FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 
WASHINGTON 
OFFICE OF 
THE CHAIRMAN 
The Honorable Jared Polis 
U.S. House ofRepresentatives 
1433 Longworth House Office Building 
Washington, D.C. 20515 
Dear Congressman Polis : 
October 1, 2014 
Thank you for your letter regarding implementation of certain aspects of Phase II of the 
Connect America Fund (CAF Phase II). Specifically, you indicate that the overall mission of the 
CAF Phase II program could be endangered if the Commission increases the current broadband 
speed benchmark for program recipients to 10 Mbps downstream /1 Mbps upstream without 
allowing flexibility in other elements of program, and you suggest several proposals to provide 
such flexibility . I appreciate your views and will ensure your letter is included in the record of 
the proceeding and considered as part of the Commission's review. 
The universal service program is one of the most important tools at our disposal to ensure 
that consumers and businesses in rural America have the same opportunities as their urban and 
suburban counterparts to be active participants in the United States of the 21 st century. We are 
focused on updating the universal service high-cost program to ensure that we are delivering the 
best possible voice and broadband experience to rural America within the confmes of our 
Connect America budget, while providing increased certainty and predictability for all carriers 
and a climate for increased broadband expansion. 
In April, the Commission adopted a Connect America Fund Phase II Report and Order to 
move forward with Phase II of the Connect America Fund for price-cap carriers. In addition, in 
an associated Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), the Commission sought 
comment on a number of the issues you raise, including revising the current broadband 
performance obligations to require minimum speeds of 10 Mbps downstream and applying the 
same performance obligations to all recipients of Phase II support and to rate-of-return carriers. 
The FNPRM also seeks comment on a proposal to allow CAF II recipients more flexibility in 
meeting their performance obligations, such as the ability to substitute locations in partially­
served census blocks for locations in the unserved census block for which it received support. 
The record on these issues just closed and is under consideration by Commission staff. 
One fmal step in the process before we can complete CAF II, which your letter 
references, is that we must fmalize the list of census blocks that are eligible for support. We 
recently initiated the CAF II challenge process and received a total of 178,335 challenges from 
parties challenging the served/unserved status of a census block. Commission staff is currently 
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reviewing these challenges, and we recently released a Public Notice giving parties 45 days to 
comment on these challenges. We intend to make sure that a fair challenge process is conducted to 
ensure that all eligible unserved areas qualify for funding. 
We expect a robust record on these topics and I welcome a dialogue with stakeholders as 
to how best to accomplish our shared objectives. I look forward to working with you as we 
continue reforming and modernizing the universal service fund high-cost program- as well as 
other components of the Universal Service Fund- to ensure that all Americans have access to 
robust voice and broadband services. 
I appreciate your interest in this matter. Please let me know ifl can be of any further 
assistance. 
Tom Wheeler