Public Notice

In the wake of the 2015 Title II Order,  the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability slowed dramatically. From 2012 to 2014, the two years preceding the Title II Order, fixed terrestrial broadband Internet access was deployed to 29.9 million people who never had it before, including 1 million people on Tribal lands. In the following two years, new deployments dropped 55 percent, reaching only 13.5 million people, including only 330,000 people on Tribal lands.

In this notice, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau announces that there is sufficient funding available to fully meet the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) estimated demand for category one and category two requests for E-Rate supported services for funding year 2018. 

As required by the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, with this Public Notice, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, in coordination with the Wireline Competition Bureau, establishes a portal for Internet service provider (ISP) transparency disclosures. The Order becomes effective on June 11, 2018, and the revised transparency rule requires ISPs to publicly disclose information about their service in one of two ways – by providing the disclosure on a publicly available, easily accessible website or by submitting it to the Federal Communications Commission for posting. On May 29, 2018

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed members to serve on the Harmonization working group of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). This working group is being formed following the vote of the BDAC on April 25, 2018, to approve both the Model Code for Municipalities and Model Code for States, subject to the understanding that further work would be done to address inconsistencies and otherwise harmonize the two codes.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has selected Paul D’Ari to serve as Designated Federal Officer (DFO) of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), effective May 14, 2018. D’Ari, who currently serves as Deputy DFO, will replace Brian Hurley, who is leaving the agency. Deborah Salons and Jiaming Shang will serve as the new Deputy DFOs.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration issues this Notice on behalf of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) to initiate the annual process to seek expressions of interest from individuals who would like to serve on the FirstNet Board. One of the 12 appointments of nonpermanent members to the FirstNet Board, expiring August 2019, is currently vacant. Additionally, four of the 12 appointments of nonpermanent members to the FirstNet Board expire in August 2018, creating a total of five available appointments to the FirstNet Board.

The Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau announced the issuance of a further allocation of the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund in the amount of $742 million to reimburse eligible full power and Class A broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) (together, Eligible Entities) for expenses related to the construction of station facilities on reassigned television channels. With this further allocation, Eligible Entities have access to a total of $1.742 billion.

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed David Young to serve on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) as a representative of the National League of Cities. Young is Fiber Infrastructure and Right of Way Manager for the City of Lincoln (NE). 

Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai hereby appoints Sarah Freeman, Commissioner, Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission as member to the Board of Directors of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). The appointment fills the vacancy left by the Honorable Ronald A. Brise, former Commissioner, Florida Public Service Commission.

In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Notice), we take steps to harmonize our rules regarding jurisdictional separations to reflect the Federal Communications Commission’s actions in February 2017 to reduce and eliminate unnecessary accounting rules. We further our goal of updating and modernizing the Commission’s rules to minimize outdated compliance burdens on carriers and to free up scarce resources that can accordingly be used to expand modern networks that bring economic opportunity, job creation and civic engagement to all Americans.