CenturyLink Wants Government Funds to Deploy Against WISP's

CenturyLink was all but guaranteed 30% of the $300M Broadband Fund. But it wants more than that - at the expense of Wireless ISP's, including B2B WISP's like Southwestern Wireless, MOTOwi4, and Airband. C-Link has petitioned the FCC for more of the CFA money.

Peter Copeland works for C-Link and helped "identified 55 unique WISPs in CenturyLink’s service territory where at least one of three conditions applies:"

1. The WISP’s coverage area portrayed in the National Broadband Map (NBM) is highly implausible, given line-of-sight and power restrictions, and that area is located in a state that, to our knowledge, has not independently verified WISP coverage areas shown in the NBM;
2. The WISP, like satellite broadband providers, imposes substantially higher retail prices or more stringent data caps than CenturyLink does; or
3. The WISP provides broadband services only to business customers.

The waiver rests on a couple of things: "the WISP, like satellite broadband providers, imposes unusually high retail prices ($720 or more for the first year of service) or unusually stringent data caps (25 GB per month or below), even though its services, also like satellite broadband services, are technologically inferior to wireline broadband."

By that logic, cable should get the money because they deliver faster service, cheaper than DSL.

I just don't understand why taxpayers have to pay to deploy broadband, especially to a company as large as C-Link. This is the government picking winners again.

This will close a number of WISP operations and cause job losses. This is not something the Administration wants, especially during election season.