Alaska telecoms urge FCC commissioner's aide to back $162 million for mobile broadband

Members of the Alaska Telecom Association urged Edyael Casaperalta, legal adviser to Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Anna Gomez, on Nov. 4 to support a proposed order releasing $162 million in supplemental mobile broadband funding for Alaska, according to an ex parte notice the association filed Friday. An ex parte notice is the public record of a private meeting with FCC officials.

Chairman Brendan Carr circulated the order for a commission vote Oct. 14. It would add the money to the Alaska Connect Fund and distribute it to mobile providers through an application-based process, according to the FCC announcement. The commission had not adopted it as of an earlier report.

Representatives of nine member carriers, including Alaska Communications and GCI, attended with the association's outside counsel.

"Such funding would have a positive impact to advance mobile broadband deployment in the state," Executive Director Christine O'Connor wrote in the filing.

The group also backed extending two parts of the Alaska Connect Fund: Mobile Phase I, which supports mobile carriers, and the ACF Transition for fixed service. An extension would give providers needed certainty and let them best serve Alaska consumers, the filing said. The proposed order includes a two-year Mobile Phase I extension; the FCC announcement does not mention the fixed Transition. Alaska Power & Telephone, one of the carriers at the meeting, asked the FCC in August to extend the transition by at least two years and said ending a separate rural subsidy would cost it about $1.1 million a year.

The FCC adopted the Alaska Connect Fund in 2024 to replace the Alaska Plan, a 10-year program set up in 2016 that is now ending. The new fund is scheduled to begin in January 2027 and supports mobile and fixed carriers through 2034.

In its 2024 Federal Register order, the FCC said the number of Alaskans in supported areas with 4G LTE service or better had grown from about 33,000 to 98,000 since 2017, but an estimated 51,000 still received 3G service or worse. Mobile broadband is not funded through the federal BEAD program, the order said.