In a letter to Sen. John Thune (D-NM), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband, INCOMPAS shared its perspective on how the government can best ensure that federal dollars for broadband services are implemented properly, the current broadband regulatory structure, and the association's priorities on these issues, which are vital to its member companies.
INCOMPAS said that it believes "the best way to ensure affordable, robust connectivity is to enable and promote competition. Continuing to fund monopoly networks that do not enable customer choice is a failed market policy that we must leave in the past. As such, INCOMPAS has advocated that the process for IIJA’s Internet for All funding be open to competitors and that policymakers require funded entities to enable competition and choice for customers through wholesale access policies. We urge Congress to ensure that all unserved and underserved locations in the U.S. be eligible for IIJA funding as intended so that every location in the U.S. is finally served by robust broadband."
Responses included with the letter detail INCOMPAS priorities of increasing access for competitive broadband providers to reach residential and business customers in multiple tenant environment (MTEs), as well as urging the FCC to move forward with USF contribution reform in order to stabilize this country’s most critical connectivity programs and decrease the burden on telecom customers.
INCOMPAS also urged policymakers to continue finding ways to open new spectrum resources and, where possible, enable spectrum sharing so that industry can bring paradigm-shifting services like 5G, fixed wireless and fixed satellite service to market.
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