Today's Regulatory Mix: FCC Releases Tentative Agenda for June Open Meeting; Will Vote on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Procedures

FCC Releases Tentative Agenda for June Open Meeting; Will Vote on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Procedures

The FCC has released a tentative agenda for its June 9, 2020, Open Meeting.  Some of the items include:

• Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Final Auction Procedures – The Commission will consider a Public Notice that would establish procedures for the Phase I auction) of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904), awarding up to $16 billion in support over 10 years for deployment of broadband services in unserved areas.  
  
• State/Local Approval of Wireless Equipment Modifications – The Commission will consider a Declaratory Ruling and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would clarify, and seek comment on changes to, the Commission’s rules implementing section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012 in order to accelerate the deployment of communications infrastructure by facilitating the upgrade of existing sites for 5G networks. 

What the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Public Notice would do:

• Schedule the auction to commence on October 29, 2020, open the short-form filing window on July 1, 2020, and establish a short-form application deadline of July 15, 2020.
• Adopt census block groups as the minimum geographic area in which areas eligible for support can be grouped for bidding in the auction.
• Conclude that applicants may not bid for support using network technologies that have not shown demonstrated success in providing mass market retail broadband to consumers.
• Adopt pre-auction short-form application procedures to ensure that potential bidders have the business experience and financial means to participate in the auction and intend to use a network technology that will allow them to meet performance requirements.
• Adopt post-auction long-form application procedures and collect information from winning bidders demonstrating that they will have the technical and financial ability to deploy their planned broadband networks and meet other public interest obligations in the areas where they win support.
• Adopt a simplified multi-round, descending clock auction where bidders will indicate in each round whether they will bid to provide service to an area at a given performance tier and latency. The auction will end after the aggregate support amount of all bids is less than or equal to the total budget and there is no longer competition for support in any area.

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.