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| **Condensed Notes to Interim Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)** | Â                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       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| Commitments And Contingencies Disclosure Text Block                          | (8)       Commitments and Contingencies

 

Litigation, Disputes, and Regulatory Matters

We are involved in various lawsuits, billing disputes, legal proceedings, and regulatory matters that have arisen from time to time in the normal course of business. While the ultimate results of these items cannot be predicted with certainty, we do not expect at this time for the resolution of them to have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or liquidity.In addition we are involved in the following matters:

 
- In  September 2008, the FCC's Office of Inspector General ("OIG") initiated an investigation regarding Alaska DigiTel LLC's (“Alaska DigiTel”) compliance with program rules and requirements under the Lifeline Program. The request covered the period beginning January 1, 2004 through August 31, 2008 and related to amounts received for Lifeline service.  Alaska DigiTel was an Alaska based wireless communications company of which we acquired an 81.9% equity interest on January 2, 2007 and the remaining 18.1% equity interest on August 18, 2008 and was subsequently merged with one of our wholly owned subsidiaries in April 2009. Prior to August 18, 2008, our control over the operations of Alaska DigiTel was limited as required by the FCC upon its approval of our initial acquisition completed in January 2007. We responded to this request on behalf of Alaska DigiTel and the GCI companies as affiliates. On January 18, 2011 we reached an agreement with the FCC and the Department of Justice to settle the matter, which required us to contribute $1.6 million to the United States Treasury and granted us a broad release of claims including those under the False Claims Act.   The $1.6 million contribution, of which $154,000, $661,000 and $741,000  were  recognized in selling, general and administrative expense in the income statement s  in the years ending December 31, 2010, 2009 and 2008, respectively, was paid in January 2011;  and

 
- In August 2010, a GCI , Inc. -owned aircraft was involved in an accident resulting in five fatalities and injuries to the remaining four passengers on board .    We had aircraft and liability insurance coverage in effect at the time of the accident.  We cannot predict the likelihood or nature of  the total  potential claims related to the accident.

 

TERRA-Southwest

In January 2010 the U.S. Department of Agriculture's RUS approved our wholly-owned subsidiary, United Utilities, Inc.'s (“UUI”) application for an $88.2 million loan/grant combination to extend terrestrial broadband service for the first time to Bristol Bay and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, an area in Alaska roughly the size of the state of North Dakota.  Upon completion, this project, called TERRA-Southwest (“TERRA-SW”), will be able to serve over 9,000 households and over 700 businesses in the 65 covered communities.  The project will also be able to serve numerous public/non-profit/private community anchor institutions and entities, such as regional health care providers, school districts, and other regional and Alaska native organizations. The RUS award, consisting of a $44.2 million loan and a $44.0 million grant, is made under the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program established pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The award funds backbone network facilities that we would not otherwise be able to construct within our return-on-investment requirements.  UUI started construction on TERRA-SW in 2010 and expects to complete the project in 2012 or earlier if possible.We have borrowed $2.8 million in loan funds, leaving $41.4 million remaining loan funds available as of June 30, 2011 for our TERRA-SW project.  We have received $2.8 million in grant funds, leaving $41.2 million remaining grant funds available as of June 30, 2011 for our TERRA-SW project.  

 

Universal Service

On March 16, 2010, the FCC staff released the National Broadband Plan, including among its topics a proposal to transition existing USF high cost support from voice to broadband networks over a ten year period. On April 21, 2010, the FCC initiated a proceeding to consider interim and long-term USF reforms, including a five year phase-out of support to competitive ETCs. On February 8, 2011, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to consider adopting reforms to its high cost support program, including, among other things, the proposed competitive ETC phase-out and ways to fund and distribute support for broadband services.  More recently, a number of industry consensus plans have been proposed to the FCC that would substantially change the methodology for distributing USF high cost support, as well as the access charge regime.  We cannot predict at this time the outcome of this proceeding, the prospects for adoption of these or other reforms, the effect on high cost support available to us, or how our access charge revenues and payments would be affected; however, our revenue for providing wireline and wireless local services in these areas would be materially adversely affected by the reduction of USF support.

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| - Definition
Includes disclosure of commitments and contingencies. This element may be used as a single block of text to encapsulate the entire disclosure including data and tables.
+ References
Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name FASB Interpretation (FIN) -Number 14 -Paragraph 3Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) -Number 5 -Paragraph 9, 10, 11, 12
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