Rural Health Care Support Mechanism

In this document, the Wireline Competition Bureau (the Bureau) maintains support on a limited, interim, fiscally responsible basis for specific Rural Health Care Pilot Program participants that have exhausted their funding this year or will exhaust such funding during funding year 2012 to ensure that they can continue to benefit from access to these Pilot Program-funded broadband networks, while the Commission considers potential reforms to transition recipients of Pilot funding to a longer-term mechanism for supporting broadband services delivered to rural HCPs. This interim support will preserve transitioning Pilot Program participants' connectivity and the resulting health care benefits that patients receive from those investments made by the Commission in health care broadband networks.