The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau has approved the key rates applicable to any major Alaska telecommunications carrier seeking support funding under the FCC’s Rural Health Care (RHC) Program. The RHC Program, which has $581 million in total funding, is designed to assist rural health care providers so that they do not pay more for telecommunications services than their urban equivalents. Due to at least two recent cases of non-Alaska carriers falsifying documents in order to inflate their rural rates, the Commission not only fined those offending carriers $40 million but it also took steps to curb program loopholes and, in the case of Alaska carrier GCI Communications Corp., approve $77.8 in RHC Program funding.
