The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of 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 a TMI Briefing.
TELECOM
FCC
Open Meeting
The FCC announced the agenda for its December 17, 2015, Open Meeting, as follows:
The FCC will also hear a presentation on the outcomes of the International Telecommunication Union’s World Radio Conference that took place in November 2015 and consider six media items as a consent agenda.
New FCC.GOV Website
The FCC officially launched the new FCC.gov website on December 10, 2015. A blog posting by the webmaster and FCC.GOV project manager describes some of the new features, which include: (1) A new a “toggle” capability that allows visitors to browse by "Category" or "Bureau and Office." Extensive user research revealed visitors to FCC.gov prefer a clear separation of consumer content and practitioner content; the toggle navigation accommodates these differing preferences. (2) A new site search feature that brings together results from both FCC.gov and the Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) “into a seamless search experience.” Users can search only within FCC.gov and EDOCS and there are an array of facets to help further refine search results. Work will continue in the weeks and months ahead to continue refining the relevancy of the search results. (3) The design of the site has been upgraded to a more modern look-and-feel that is “responsive to the device you are using.” Thus, the display will adjust depending on whether you are using a mobile device, tablet or computer. The site also utilizes brighter colors and more white space to direct eye focus and enhance the scan ability of webpages. The FCC is looking for feedback, especially with respect to any bugs, broken links, or missing content. Feedback should be provided to webfeedback@fcc.gov.
CAF Phase II Auction
In a blog posting, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly laid out the principles he believes should guide the formation of rules for the anticipated reverse auction to select recipients of Connect America Fund (CAF) money to provide broadband service in areas not selected by ILECs. (In a reverse auction, providers would bid down on how much CAF support they would receive to serve an area with broadband. The FCC has talked about making available $175 million per year (or $1.75 billion over 10 years) for the auction. ) He proposes the following fundamental principles: