CenturyLink declared today that it will accept $35 million from the Federal Marketing and sales communications Commission's Connect America Finance (CAF) to set up great speed websites to 45,000 houses in unserved non-urban places.
CenturyLink was eligible for nearly $90 million in CAF Stage I financing. However, limitations on the use of the CAF 1 resources made further implementation uneconomic.
"CenturyLink is thrilled to be able to work with the FCC to carry internet solutions to millions of houses for the first time. In addition to the small CAF financing, we are investing huge amount of money of our own money to carry solid internet solutions to more clients because we believe these solutions will carry essential academic and economic opportunities to high-cost, non-urban places of the country," said Bob Davis, CenturyLink professional v. p. for community policy and government interaction.
"We are dissatisfied that limitations on the use of these resources will not allow us to set up non-urban internet solutions to the level we had initially expected," Davis said. "However, we share the FCC's overall goal of implementing needed features in high-cost places where efficient and cost-effective great speed websites is not available. Therefore, we will continue working with the FCC to figure out ways to wisely use additional CAF 1 resources to provide internet solutions to our non-urban clients."
CenturyLink has registered a waiver application which, if provided, would allow it to set up internet solutions to approximately 60,000 more houses in high-cost places where efficient and cost-effective assistance is currently not available. This waiver has been reinforced by the California Public Service Commission, the New york Division of Industry and other state organizations.