The FCC has denied an Alaska Telecom Association (ATA) petition requesting a waiver of the Alaska Plan requirement for support recipients to plan submit fiber network maps accurate within 7.6-meters by March 1, 2019. The petition, which was filed in early February 2019, followed an unsuccessful reconsideration petition. The ATA argued that its members lack a business reason to collect or retain records of their fiber link locations at the 7.6-meter accuracy standard and that timely obtaining this information would be a “practical impossibility.” The FCC held that the ATA petition failed to meet the waiver standard and that such relief is not needed by the over 50% of ATA members that already certified in their initial filing to this accuracy standard for some or all of their owned fiber links six months ahead of time. The FCC also notes that at least one ATA member has submitted its 2019 filing at the 7.6-meter accuracy standard.
