The Regulatory Mix - Monday, December 19, 2016

The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily 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 a TMI Briefing.

FCC Fixed Satellite Services

The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on a proposal to update, clarify, and streamline its rules to facilitate the deployment of non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO), fixed-satellite service (FSS) systems (NGSO FSS), which have the capability to provide services, including Internet access, to underserved communities worldwide; and update certain rules governing operation of FSS space stations in the geostationary-satellite orbit (GSO) to enable greater operational flexibility. Specifically, it proposes to:

• allocate additional spectrum for use by FSS systems on a secondary basis in the 17.8-18.3 GHz band, subject to power limits designed to protect primary terrestrial services;
• provide additional flexibility for FSS operations within the 18.3-18.6 GHz, 18.8-19.4 GHz, 19.6-20.2 GHz, and 29.3-29.5 GHz bands, subject to coordination with terrestrial operations as necessary;
• implement domestically the international power limits on NGSO FSS operations in portions of the 17.8-20.2 GHz and 27.5-30 GHz bands; and
• amend the satellite milestone policies and geographic coverage rules to provide additional regulatory flexibility to operators of NGSO FSS systems.

The FCC also seeks comment on new and updated criteria to facilitate spectrum sharing among NGSO FSS systems.

FCC CPNI Certifications

The FCC announced the effective dates for certain of its new privacy rules. See the Regulatory Mix dated 10/27/16. It also clarified that telecommunications carriers and interconnected VoIP providers will not be required to file annual CPNI certifications in 2017. Once the Order becomes effective on January 3, 2017, they also will not be required to keep records of sales and marketing campaigns using CPNI or instances where CPNI was provided to third parties. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 12/15/16.