FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 
WASHINGTON 
OFFICE OF 
THE CHAIRMAN 
The Honorable Joe Donnelly 
United States Senate 
720 Hart Senate Office Building 
Washington, D.C. 20510 
Dear Senator Donnelly: 
October 1, 2014 
Thank you for your letter requesting the Commission to consider modifications to certain 
aspects of Phase II of the Connect America Fund (CAF Phase II). 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. 
I agree with you that high-speed broadband access is an essential component for 
economic growth in rural communities. 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 experiences 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 
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. 
Page 2-The Honorable Joe Donnelly 
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. 
Sincerely, 
~ -
l&eeler