The FCC will take a series of steps to reestablish the commission's net neutrality framework and reclassify broadband internet access service (BIAS) as a Communications Act Title II telecom service in a declaratory ruling and order (see 2404030043). A draft of the items to be considered during the agency's April meeting, released Thursday, would establish "broad" and "tailored" forbearance for ISPs. The draft doesn’t make a final determination on how network slicing should be treated under the rules.
Comments are due April 29, replies May 13, on a proposed reinstated collection by the FCC of Form 395-A, which gathers multichannel video programming distributors' workforce composition data, the Media Bureau said Wednesday. The Form 395-A Further NPRM was adopted 3-2 in February alongside an order reinstating collection of broadcaster workforce demographic data via Form 395-B (see 2402220078). Comments are to be submitted in docket 98-204.
Opening briefs of the four petitioners and their intervenor supporters challenging the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act (see 2403220041) would be due July 15 under a proposed briefing schedule that has the backing of all parties, NAB told the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Tuesday. Sept. 13 is the proposed deadline for the FCC’s response brief and that of NCTA, which is intervening to defend the order against the petitioners’ Section 202(h) challenges, said the filing. Reply briefs would be due Oct. 15 and final briefs on Nov. 18, it said. The proposed schedule “would allow for the briefing to be complete and the cases ready for submission on the merits” before the end of calendar 2024, it said. The petitioners currently anticipate filing joint opening and reply briefs, it said. The intervenors supporting the Section 202(h) challenge anticipate filing two sets of opening and reply briefs, one from the four network affiliates associations, the other from six radio ownership groups, it said. “The number of briefs, the issues the parties intend to raise, and the number of words needed for full and efficient presentation of the issues could change if additional petitions for review or intervention motions are filed,” it said. April 15 is the deadline to file additional petitions for review of the quadrennial order; further intervention motions would be due 30 days later, said the filing. The parties request leave to file a supplemental joint proposed briefing schedule by April 22, seven days after the deadline to file a petition for review, it said. They further request leave to file a second supplemental joint proposal by May 22, if necessary, seven days after the deadline to intervene, “to ensure all parties are accounted for,” it said. The consolidated petitions pending in the 8th Circuit are from Zimmer Radio (docket 24-1380), Beasley Media Group (docket 24-1480), NAB (docket 24-1493) and Nexstar Media Group (docket 24-1516).
The Utah Public Service Commission granted SpaceX’s request to relinquish its eligible telecom carrier (ETC) designation, the PSC ordered Tuesday. The PSC made the company an ETC in 2021 so that it could participate in the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. But the FCC last year upheld the Wireless Bureau’s 2022 rejection of Starlink’s application for RDOF support (see 2312130027).
The California Public Utilities Commission released NTIA curing instructions for volume one of California’s initial proposal for the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The CPUC gave parties until Thursday at 5 p.m. PST to comment on the Tuesday notice in docket R.23-02-016. The record for volume one will stand submitted at the same time and date, said Administrative Law Judge Thomas Glegola. “A proposed decision may be issued anytime thereafter.” The CPUC attached NTIA’s curing instructions from Feb. 6 and March 8, plus the CPUC Feb. 23 response and a Jan. 13 letter to the FCC about the state’s challenge to the national broadband map. In California’s cured volume one, the CPUC added information from the FCC’s Jan. 6 broadband report showing that “advertised or claimed DSL speeds rarely meet or exceed actual speeds delivered to customers,” the agency said. That and other “sources of objective data provide ample evidentiary basis to substantiate” a CPUC modification to NTIA’s model that presumes “locations for which providers have claimed to deliver speeds only slightly above the ‘unserved’ threshold, up to [30 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload], are actually receiving speeds below the ‘unserved’ threshold of 25/3 Mbps,” the commission said. “This modification is consistent with the CPUC’s and NTIA’s longstanding efforts to phase out legacy copper network infrastructure, and it does not seek to modify in any way the unserved threshold established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”
The Wireless ISP Association met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on an NPRM proposing a ban on bulk billing arrangements in apartments, condos, public housing and other multi-unit buildings (see 2403050069). “Bulk billing agreements with a competitive carrier can provide a valuable consumer benefit by offering broadband service at up to 60% off retail rates to all multi-tenant environment residents, especially in low-income or public housing developments,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 17-142: “Competitive providers, especially small providers, benefit from securing a stable and steady customer base in an MTE at a significant reduction in transactional costs.”
T-Mobile answered three series of questions that FCC staff posed about the company’s proposed acquisition of Mint Mobile (see 2303150032), a low-cost prepaid wireless brand, and other assets from Ka’ena. Among the questions: “What are your top 3 risks? Who owns those risks? Who owns the risk management process?” and how will T-Mobile protect customer data as the assets are integrated? The answers were almost completely redacted in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 23-171.
The FCC's April open meeting will see commissioners voting on a draft NPRM about georouting calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote Wednesday. Also on the agenda is reinstatement of net neutrality rules (see 2404030043). More than 80% of calls to 988 come from wireless numbers, and network design makes it "challenging to receive help from close by," she wrote. The NPRM, which circulated on the 10th floor last month (see 2403210033), proposes routing calls to the crisis call center closest to where the call is made.
A school bus is neither a classroom nor a library and that “makes short work of this case under basic principles of administrative law,” the opening brief said Tuesday (docket 23-60641) in support of a 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals petition to defeat the FCC’s Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040).
The FCC’s unanimous order Tuesday allowing radio stations to use FM boosters to offer geotargeted ads and announcements comes over the objections of the nation’s largest radio broadcasters and NAB's years-long campaign against FCC authorization (see 2209230070. Although Tuesday’s order allows broadcasters to receive only temporary authorization for geotargeted content and seeks comment on procedures for a more permanent process, advocates for the ZoneCast technology pushed by GeoBroadcast Solutions (GBS) see the order as a win and the accompanying Further NPRM as mostly ministerial. “Today marks a monumental victory for small- and minority-owned FM radio stations,” said Roberts Radio CEO Steve Roberts, a longtime proponent of the technology. NAB “is pleased that the Commission is only authorizing the use of GeoBroadcast Solutions’ troubling technology on an experimental basis at this time,” the trade group said.