CenturyLink still hasn’t met 2019 FCC deadline, now faces pandemic roadblocks
Pandemic disrupts broadband progress as cities halt construction. …
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CenturyLink’s slow broadband deployment, already a problem before the pandemic, has gotten even slower as the public health crisis causes cities and towns to halt construction.
Since 2015, CenturyLink has received $505.7 million each year from the US government’s Connect America Fund to deploy Internet service to nearly 1.2 million homes and businesses in 33 states. CenturyLink was required to complete 80 percent of that deployment by the end of 2019 but recently told the Federal Communications Commission that it did not meet the end-of-2019 deadline in 23 of the 33 states.
CenturyLink still has not met the end-of-2019 deadline in those 23 states, the company told Ars today. CenturyLink was thus already likely to have trouble meeting the end-of-2020 deadline for completing 100 percent of the government-subsidized construction. Pandemic-related restrictions on construction have slowed CenturyLink down further, the company told FCC officials in a meeting described in an ex parte filing last week:
Like other network operators, however, CenturyLink is experiencing several pandemic-related issues that are disrupting and slowing broadband network deployment, including ongoing and planned deployment toward Connect America Fund (CAF) milestones. In some cases, localities have mandated a complete work stoppage that extends to broadband deployment. Numerous permitting agencies, particularly at the county and local level, are shut down or have scaled back operations, substantially reducing their ability to process permit applications. In addition, we are facing higher instances of backorders
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