Today's Regulatory Mix: FCC's O'Rielly Expresses Concern About Overbuilding, FCC Encourages Implementation of Network Reliability Practices, FCC Announces Final Agenda for December Meeting; Adds New Telecom Related Items
FCC’s O’Rielly Expresses Concern About Overbuilding
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly sent a letter to Wyoming Governor Gordon expressing his concerns over potential use of CARES Act funding to overbuild existing broadband networks in the state. He states that: “[s]everal Wyoming local fiber and cable-based broadband providers recently brought to my attention legitimate concerns that their high-speed broadband networks are likely to be overbuilt by competitors receiving CARES Act grants being distributed through the Wyoming Business Council’s (WBC) Connect Wyoming program. I have spent a good portion of my career at the FCC fighting against the wasteful subsidization of network builds where competitors are already providing service, which siphons funding away from projects that could otherwise help reach unserved areas and threatens the viability of existing providers’ private investments. I was, therefore, quite concerned to learn that Wyoming may be using scarce federal CARES Act dollars in this very manner and funding the duplication of broadband networks in communities where providers are already offering service.”
O’Rielly goes on to note that the WBC has not “publicly released the applications or proposed coverage maps for the grant recipients, nor has it taken the requisite steps to ensure subsidized overbuilding did not and will not occur.” Among other things, he expressed concerns that the Connect Wyoming grants may undermine the FCC’s own broadband deployment efforts. As such he requests “that the WBC immediately release coverage maps for awarded projects, enable existing providers to challenge any duplicative projects, and halt any funding for projects that will result in subsidized overbuilding.”
FCC Encourages Implementation of Network Reliability Practices
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) issued a Public Notice reminding and encouraging communications service providers to follow industry best practices to ensure network reliability, consistent with the recommendations of the FCC’s
The best practices highlighted in the Public Notice include: (1) ensuring sufficient circuit diversity; (2) ensuring alternative routing of 911 calls; (3) validating network changes in a test environment prior to actual application in the field; (4) using virtual interfaces; (5) using network management controls; and (6) making spare equipment available.
FCC Announces Final Agenda for December Meeting; Adds New Telecom Related Items
The FCC has released the final agenda for its December meeting. They also added a few new items to the agenda that are of interest to telecom companies. No telecom items from the initial agenda were removed.
Of the five new items, three are telecom related.
- The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would begin the process of implementing section 10(a) of the TRACED Act, which directs the FCC, no later than June 30, 2021, to “prescribe regulations to establish a process that streamlines the ways in which a private entity may voluntarily share with the FCC information relating” to violations of section 227(b) or 227(e) of the Communications Act.
- The FCC will consider an Order that would amend the invoice filing deadline rule to enhance the efficient administration of the E-Rate Program and ensure program participants have sufficient time to complete the invoice payment process.
- The FCC will consider an Order on Reconsideration of its previous interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that permitted certain government and government contractor calls without consumers’ prior express consent.
____________________________
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.
