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
June Open Meeting
In a blog posting, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler provided additional information about the items on the FCC’s June 24, 2016, Open Meeting Agenda. See the Regulatory Mix dated 6/6/16. Addressing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking about coordination with the executive branch on applications such as international Section 214 applications, Wheeler said that the item seeks to make the process more predictable and transparent. For example, it proposes asking applicants, at the outset, to submit the types of information they will need to provide for Executive Branch review. It also proposes to establish expected time frames for processing, while ensuring the FCC continues to consider Executive Branch concerns.
Regarding the item on the Emergency Alert System (EAS), Wheeler said the Report and Order would add three new event codes to the EAS, i.e., “Extreme Wind Warning,” “Storm Surge Watch,” and “Storm Surge Warning,” so that the public can receive more specific and relevant alerts, particularly for hurricane-related weather. If adopted, the updated rules would require EAS equipment manufacturers to integrate the codes into new equipment and enable EAS participants to update their existing equipment in advance of next year’s Atlantic hurricane season.
In addition, he said that the Report and Order addressing outage reporting requirements would adopt new rules requiring submarine cable licensees to report major communications outages to the FCC.
ECFS
The FCC announced it will transition to its new Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) on the morning of Monday, June 20, 2016. This will be a “hard launch,” meaning that the legacy system will no longer be available after the transition. The FCC said that all documents in the legacy system will be accessible in the new system and saved links (bookmarks or favorites) to documents and proceedings should not need to be adjusted. To facilitate the transition the legacy ECFS application will be taken down starting at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, June 17, 2016, and the system will be unavailable through the weekend. The FCC plans to have the new system fully operational by 8 a.m. ET on June 20, 2016. Should any unforeseen delays take place, the FCC will release a Public Notice on the front page of its website, www.FCC.gov, informing users of any impacts.
Given that ECFS is expected to be fully operational during all FCC business hours, the FCC does not plan any changes to any deadlines.
The FCC said it will continue to take feedback and improve the system. As part of this process, a number of public, web-based tutorials will be held so that users can become comfortable with the new system. All demos will be listed here.
