The Need For Speed

When it comes our August meeting’s main attraction, repurposing C-band spectrum for 5G, we feel the need — the need for speed. I circulated final draft procedures for a C-band auction to be held on Dec 8, 2020, and we will vote on them at our August meeting. They spell out the many details of the auction — competitive bidding procedures, application requirements, and deadlines governing participation in Auction 107. To spur the deployment of ultra-fast, world-leading 5G networks, we need to make C-band spectrum (among other spectrum bands) available as quickly as possible. If the Federal Communications Commission adopts this plan to launch this auction in Dec, barely nine months after adopting rules, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.

This August, the FCC will be taking two more steps along the road to update our media rules. The FCC will be voting on an order to eliminate the radio duplication rule as it pertains to AM stations, but retain its application to FM stations. We will also be repealing antenna siting rules that go all the way back to World War II. We will also be looking to eliminate some obsolete rules for telecommunications relay services (TRS), which are services that enable those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or deafblind, or have speech disabilities to communicate.

Rounding out our August agenda will be an item to reform the rates and charges that inmates pay for telephone service. The DC Circuit has twice rejected and remanded the FCC’s past efforts to address rates and charges for inmate calling services. In this item, we would follow the law and the facts to respond to the court’s directives and comprehensively reform these rates and charges. First, we will vote on an order that responds to the court’s remand on ancillary service charges — these are separate fees that aren’t included in the per-minute rates that inmate calling services providers charge for individual calls. Second, we will vote to propose lowering our existing caps for interstate calls — from $0.21 for debit and prepaid calls and $0.25 for collect calls to $0.14 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from prisons and $0.16 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from jails.