Cybersecurity Policy Report, SI Wireless Urges Court to Grant Mandamus in ‘Rip-and-Replace’ Case, (Aug 27, 2025)

By Lynn Stanton

SI Wireless LLC has told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the FCC knew about its reduced customer base as a result of rebuilding its network to address security threats and nevertheless twice approved the company’s “rip-and-replace” plan, only to later freeze the company’s reimbursements so that it could investigate whether SI had customers throughout the rip-and-replace period.

Under the rip-and-replace program — more formally, the Secure and Trusted Communications Network Reimbursement Program (SCRP) — the FCC reimburses providers of advanced communications for costs incurred removing, replacing, and destroying telecommunications equipment or services deemed to be national security threats to telecommunications networks.

The FCC recently asked the court to dismiss SI’s mandamus petition (CPR, Aug. 15), saying that it learned last year of “credible information suggesting that a participant in the program, SI Wireless, LLC (the petitioner here), was potentially ineligible to receive reimbursement because the company was not currently a provider of advanced communications service and may not have been such a provider when it applied for reimbursement,” Opposition of Federal Communications Commission to the Petition for Writ of Mandamus at 1, In re: SI Wireless LLC, No. 25-1112 (Aug. 1, 2025).

“Some boldness infects the FCC’s tardy insistence on full continuous service. The SCRP statute does not require that throughout dismantling and renovation,” SI said, Reply to Opposition to Petition for Mandamus to Compel Agency Action, In re: SI Wireless LLC, No. 25-1112 (Aug. 15, 2025).

Eligibility for the program under the statute “is based on: (1) having 10 million or fewer customers and (2) having purchased or installed covered equipment. The statute anticipates network dismantlement and replacement—but does not demand continuous service throughout that process,” SI said.

In addition, the staff “overseeing the SCRP roll-out recognized that some providers would have to ‘start over from scratch.’ SI did that, but only after its regulatory counsel then consulted the agency, which gave her a go-ahead, saying nothing about any professed need for constant service. And SI devoted time, energy, and resources to dismantling and rebuilding its network without objection from the FCC,” SI said.

“The [FCC’s] Opposition didn’t deny that SI’s twice-approved plans disclosed its vastly diminished base and corresponding need to expedite the reconstruction process. Nor does the Opposition question that SI kept the FCC informed of its progress and lack of customer revenue. Today SI is owed over $47 million for construction done long ago—an artificially low figure because the FCC won’t accept further invoices from SI. That backlog extends backwards over two years,” SI told the court.

SI also argued that the FCC “must consider providers’ reasonable reliance interests. It never challenged SI’s proof of having a historical customer base of 30,000 subscribers, of whom all but a few had to be transferred for SI to participate in the SCRP.”

It emphasized that the staff’s failure to render a decision has left it without recourse other than to seek a writ of mandamus, as there is no final action to appeal to the full Commission, and the continued freeze on reimbursement payments “deals a continuing staggering blow to SI. It can’t generate customer income because its approved plans entailed dismantling and then restoring its network and it doesn’t receive Universal Service Fund subsidies.”

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