A coalition of national minority groups asked the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to schedule an auction for more than 8,000 educational broadband service licenses, saying continued delay will be harmful to those on the wrong side of the nation’s digital divide.
“We have all seen rural communities across the country huddled together around school buses, because that’s the only way students in those communities could access distance learning materials,” the groups said in a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We also have observed neighborhoods in America’s urban cores that lack the same broadband choices as some of their neighbors.”
The letter urged the FCC to set an auction date while it continues to process applications submitted during the tribal priority window “that closed more than a year ago,” so that potential applicants can start planning.
In a separate petition Tuesday, members of the National Tribal Telecommunications Association asked the FCC to waive the compressed construction milestones required for tribes that were granted the 2.5 gigahertz educational broadband service licenses during the priority window, citing numerous external obstacles and disasters.
Tribes have had to focus the majority of their efforts on public health issues since the onset of COVID-19, the association explained. Global supply chain interruptions have also made it “difficult, if not impossible, to procure the necessary equipment, or obtain the necessary equipment at reasonable prices in order to proceed with construction,” according to the petition.
“There is no end to the supply chain issues in sight, and small entities are being pushed further down the supply chain to satisfy those large companies that have more cargo at stake.”
As if this weren’t enough, contractor scarcity and wildfires in the southern and the southwestern U.S. have also affected tribes’ ability to build the 2.5 GHz broadband networks on a two-year timeline.
“It simply appears that outside forces have made meeting a two-year buildout requirement nearly impossible,” the association said.
The petition requests that the FCC change the performance deadlines for tribes so that they match those of the nontribal priority licenses, with interim and final milestones at four and eight years.
–Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.
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