Industry May Get More Time on FCC Broadband Availability Report
The FCC is mulling an extension to the filing deadline for the revised FCC Form 477, an FCC official told us Friday. The completed form, which will collect broadband availability data by census tract, is due from companies March 2 but isn’t yet accessible on the FCC Web site. Requests for delay were submitted by most major wireline and wireless industry groups this month, but the FCC has so far kept mum on the issue.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
There’s a growing recognition at the FCC that the industry could use another week or so to submit Form 477, and now the 8th floor offices and the Wireline Bureau are in discussions about how much to give, the FCC official said. The order will likely come out of the bureau, the official said. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.
Many broadband companies and associations have pled for more time. USTelecom and CTIA most recently joined the pack, filing a joint request Friday. The associations asked for 30 extra days, starting after the form becomes available. They joined major associations for rural and competitive carriers in both the wireline and wireless industries (CD Feb 20 p10).
The FCC released instructions and screenshots for the new form last week, but industry groups say they need to see the form itself. “Without having any opportunity to test the system and understand how it works, there will certainly be significant confusion among carriers filing reports,” said USTelecom and CTIA. “It will simply be impossible for companies to identify” difficulties they have filling out the form before deadline, “let alone for the Commission to be able to provide significant assistance to the hundreds of companies required to file -- some for the first time.” Permitting industry confusion could affect the data’s accuracy, they said.