Public Notice

Our office is pleased to release a final version of the #Solutions2020 Call to Action Plan. We believe these recommendations, if acted upon in a timely manner, can deliver robust, affordable, and reliable connectivity within the next four years. Taken together, these recommendations would narrow the opportunities divide, support the growth of our economy and greatly improve the quality of life for all Americans. Implementation will require bipartisan action, support from leaders at the federal, state and local levels as well as buy-in from representatives of the technology and telecommunications industries. I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners, Members of Congress, state and local government partners, the public interest community and industry to bring about real and lasting change by the end of this decade.

Overall Recommendations:
1) Ensuring Affordable Communications
2) Empowering Communities
3) 5G and Beyond for All Americans
4) Enhancing Consumer Protections
4) Broadband as a Driver of Imporved Health Services
6) Promoting a More Diverse Media Landscape

This Public Notice solicits input on competition in the mobile wireless industry for the Federal Communications Commission’s Twentieth Annual Report on the State of Competition in Mobile Wireless, including Commercial Mobile Radio Services.

The Communications Act requires the submission to Congress each year of reports analyzing competitive conditions with respect to commercial mobile services. With this Public Notice, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (the Bureau) seeks information and data for the Commission’s analysis of competition in the mobile wireless industry for the Twentieth Report.

Interested parties may file comments on or before May 8, 2017 and reply comments on or before June 7, 2017.

By this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announces the rollout of Version 3.0 of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS). Under Part 4 of the Commission’s rules, certain communications providers (e.g., wireless, wireline, cable, satellite communications and interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)) must report significant disruptions or outages to their communications systems.

NORS Version 3.0 improvements will enhance the overall security and reliability of NORS and allow future evolutions to better support new analytic methods. The new version of NORS has four interfaces: (1) a web-based interface, (2) a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Application Programming Interface (API), (3) a Representational State Transfer (REST) API and (4) an Extensible Markup Language (XML) interface. The SOAP API, REST API and the XML interfaces are intended for use by companies that want to automatically file outage reports.

In this Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Further Notice), we propose a further eighteen month extension of the freeze of jurisdictional separations category relationships and cost allocation factors for rate-of-return incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) while we continue to work with the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations (Joint Board) to overhaul our separations rules.

The separations rules have long been frozen in recognition of the sweeping technical and regulatory changes that have been occurring in the communications sector over the last two decades. Having made progress in implementing changes to our intercarrier compensation regime and to the high cost universal services support program, and having recently reformed our Part 32 accounting rules, now is the time to address the separations rules. In this Further Notice, we seek comment on the proposed extension and describe the path we envision towards comprehensive reform of the jurisdictional separations procedures embodied in the Commission’s rules.

Pursuant to section 410(c) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, the Commission appoints the Honorable Wendy M. Moser, Commissioner, Colorado Public Utilities Commission, to serve on the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations. This appointment fills the position recently vacated by the Honorable Betsy Wergin, Commissioner, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The Commission gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Commissioner Wergin to the work of the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau announced that the E-rate program funding cap for funding year 2017 is $3,990,207,000. The new cap represents a 1.3 percent inflation-adjusted increase in the $3,939,000,000 billion cap from funding year 2016. The FCC began indexing the funding cap to inflation in 2010 to ensure that E-rate program funding keeps pace with the changing broadband and telecommunications needs of schools and libraries.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced the appointment of one Tribal representative to the FCC's Intergovernmental Advisory Committee (IAC) to bring the IAC to its full strength of 15 members. The new representative is Danae Wilson, Manager, Department of Technology Services for the Nez Perce Tribe.

On September 29, 2016, the Commission announced the reauthorization of the IAC and sought nominations for membership. The term of the previous IAC expired on July 14, 2016. On December 29, 2016 the Commission issued a Public Notice announcing the names of the members of the reauthorized IAC and soliciting nominations for an open seat for an elected or appointed Tribal representative. Additionally, by this Public Notice we announce a change of date for the first meeting of the reauthorized Intergovernmental Advisory Committee from March 16-17, 2017 to March 24, 2017.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau seeks comment on a request for reconsideration by Free Press, 18MillionRising.org, AFL-CIO, American Library Association, Appalshop, Inc., Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, Center for Media Justice, Center for Rural Strategies, Color of Change, Common Cause, Common Sense Kids Action, Communications Workers of America, Fight for the Future, FOOTPRINTS INC, Generation Justice, Global Action Project, human-IT, Inclusive Technologies, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Media Mobilizing Project, MetroEast Community Media, Mobile Beacon, Monterey County Office of Education, NAACP, National Consumer Law Center, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Native Public Media, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Open MIC, Partners Bridging the Digital Divide, Public Knowledge, SPNN, The Benton Foundation, The Greenlining Institute, United Church of Christ, OC Inc., and WinstonNet, Inc. of the Bureau’s reconsideration of the Lifeline Broadband Provider designations.

Comments are due March 16, 2017. Reply Comments are due March 23, 2017.

(WC Docket Nos. 09-197, 11-42)

The Federal Communications Commission deleted from the list of items scheduled for consideration at its Feb 23 meeting. The FCC was to consider a Memorandum Opinion and Order concerning an Application for Review filed by Delta Radio Network regarding the dismissal of a modification application.
The FCC adopted the Consent Agenda.

The first meeting of the Federal Communications Commission's Disability Advisory Committee’s second term will take place on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, from 9:00 am to 1:30 pm Eastern Time, at the FCC’s headquarters.

At its March 21st meeting, DAC members will discuss (i) the roles and responsibilities of the Committee and its members; (ii) issues that the Committee will address; (iii) meeting schedules, (iv) issues to be assigned to each subcommittee; and (iv) any other topics relevant to the DAC’s work. The meeting will be led by the new DAC co-chairs: Lise Hamlin, Director of Public Policy of the Hearing Loss Association of America, and Sam Joehl, Principal Technical Consultant of the SSB BART Group. In addition, initial subcommittee meetings may be held following the meeting of the full DAC.