High Cost
About High Cost:
- Overview of the Program
- Overview of the Process
- Site Visits
- Training Events
- Filing Appeals
- Red Light Status (FCC site)
- Requesting Confidential Information
- Understanding Audits
- Understanding Disaggregation
- USAC FCC Filings
High Cost Tools:
Step 1: High Cost Loop Support
High Cost Loop (HCL) support is available to competitive carriers providing service in the areas of rural price-cap and rate-of-return incumbent carriers and designated as eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) by their state commissions or the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
High Cost Loop support provides support for the "last mile" of connection for rural incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) in service areas where the cost to provide this service exceeds 115% of the national average cost per line. There also was a limited amount of HCL support for non-rural ILECs, which was known as interim hold harmless support. At present, there are no non-rural companies that receive interim hold harmless support.
Competitive ETCs are paid HCL at the same per-line rate as the incumbent carrier.
HCL support is subject to an annual indexed cap for ILECs. For rural ILECs, the cap is based on the prior year's rural ILEC HCL support and a Rural Growth Factor, which allows HCL support to change based on annual changes in the Gross Domestic Product-Chained Price Index (GDP-CPI) and the total number of working loops of rural incumbent carriers. HCL to competitive ETCs is not subject to the ILEC cap and is above the ILEC support.
HCL is covered in Subpart F of Part 36 of the FCC's rules (47 C.F.R. § 36.601 et seq).
