Note 4 - Accounts Receivable

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

Notes to Financial Statements

Loans, Notes, Trade and Other Receivables Disclosure [Text Block]

4. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

Accounts receivable, net, consists of the following at

December 31, 2018

and

2017:

	2018			2017
Retail customers	$	21,732		$	22,227
Wholesale carriers		9,315			8,146
Other		4,361			4,891
		35,408			35,264
Less: allowance for doubtful accounts		(3,936	)		(2,729	)
Accounts receivable, net	$	31,472		$	32,535

The following table presents the activity in the allowance for doubtful accounts for the years ended

December 31, 2018

and

2017.

	2018			2017
Balance at January 1	$	2,729		$	1,115
Provision for uncollectible accounts		2,745			3,577
Charged to other accounts		(921	)		(358	)
Deductions		(617	)		(1,605	)
Balance at December 31	$	3,936		$	2,729

In

March 2018,

USAC announced that demand for rural health care support had exceeded the program’s

$400

million annual cap in Funding Year

2017

(which began on

July 1, 2017

and ends on

June 30, 2018)

and that individual applicants that filed successful funding requests would receive approximately

84.4%

of the funding for which they were otherwise eligible. In

June 2018,

the FCC announced that it had raised the annual funding cap for Funding Year

2017

to

$571

million to fully fund eligible funding requests for that year. During the

third

quarter of

2018,

the applications associated with Funding Year

2017

for essentially all of the Company’s rural health care customers were approved or denied. Resolution of customer applications did

not

have a material effect on revenue recognized through

June 30, 2018.

In the

fourth

quarter of

2018,

the FCC notified the Company that it had approved the Funding Year

2018

(which began on

July 1, 2018

and ends on

June 30, 2019)

cost-based rural rates for its customers. As of

December 31, 2018,

USAC had issued funding commitment letters for the majority of the Company’s customer applications for Funding Year

2018.

Accounts receivable, net, associated with rural health care customers was

$8,122

and

$8,580

at

December 31, 2018

and

2017,

respectively. Rural health care accounts are a component of the Retail Customers category in the above table. See Note

2

“

Revenue Recognition

” for additional information.