Today:  National Preparedness Month, Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Grant Program, FCC Commissioners to Visit Florida, FCC Releases Hurricane Irma Status Report 

National Preparedness Month

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that September is National Preparedness Month … “Disasters Don’t Plan Ahead.  YOU CAN.”  Click here to see the FEMA toolkit.  Ready.gov is encouraging everyone to plan how they would stay safe and communicate during disasters.  FirstNet, the nationwide public safety broadband network, supports first responders as they help their communities prepare for the unexpected.  Click here to read FirstNet’s blog. 

Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Grant Program

The Broadband Accessibility Grant Program is designed to offset the capital expenses in the deployment of broadband in unserved areas.  The goal of the program is to facilitate broadband access to all Tennesseans while promoting practices that increase deployment and encourage adoption.  Funds will be targeted to areas that are unlikely to receive broadband service without grant funding.  Click here to download the Program guidelines.  Applicants must be authorized to provide retail broadband I the area proposed to be served with grant funding.  Applications are due by November 17, 2017.  Grantees will be announced in January 2018 and projects must be completed within two years of the start of contract.

FCC Commissioners To Visit Florida

The FCC announced that Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will be in Florida on Monday, September 18, 2017 to jointly inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, meet with those engaged in recovery operations, and receive updates about the ongoing efforts to restore communications services.  Commissioner Clyburn said, in part: “I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to ensure that the lessons learned during this visit translate into actionable steps that the Commission and industry can take to ensure that our communications networks remain resilient in the face of these powerful and dangerous storms.”  Additional details regarding their trip to Florida will be released closer to the trip.

FCC Releases Latest Hurricane Irma Status Report

The FCC released another status report on communications services in geographic areas impacted by Hurricane Irma as of September 13, 2017.  The report incorporates network outage data submitted by communications providers to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) for all areas of Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and parts of Georgia and Alabama.  The report indicates that: (1) there were a 29 PSAPs in Florida, 5 PSAPs in Georgia and 2 PSAPs in the US Virgin Islands affected by the storm; (2) 54.7% of the cell sites in the US Virgin Islands, 18.1% of the cell sites in Florida, 10.1% of the cell sites in Puerto Rico, 5.3% of the cell sites in the affected areas of Georgia, and less than 1% of the cell sites in the affected areas of Alabama were out of service with counties in only 3 counties in Florida and 2 counties in the US Virgin Island reporting 50% of their cells sites down; (3) there are at least 8,190,407 consumers without either cable or wireline service in the affected areas in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia; (4) there are 1,040 non-mobile switching centers out in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia; and (5) there are a total of 10 broadcast stations reported out of service; and (6) there are a total of 39 radio stations out of service.

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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.