Today: FCC Form 477 Filing, FCC Emergency Alert System, Copper Retirement, and Maryland Establishes Office of Rural Broadband.

FCC Form 477 Filing

The filing deadline for FCC Form 477 data as of June 30, 2017 is September 1, 2017.  The FCC’s Form 477 filing interface is now accepting data as of June 30, 2017.  Information on how to file Form 477 is available on the FCC’s Form 477 Resources for Filers webpage. 

FCC Emergency Alert System

On June 22, 2017, the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to amend the Emergency Alert System (EAS) rules to adopt a new EAS event code that will allow the transmission of “Blue Alerts” to the public over the EAS.  A summary of the NPRM was published in the Federal Register on June 30, 2017.  Accordingly, comments will be due on or before July 31, 2017, and reply comments on or before August 29, 2017.

Copper Retirement

Verizon filed a public notice of network changes involving the retirement of copper in the Buffalo Main, New York wire center.  Verizon said that in response to losing its lease on a building that houses certain copper facilities, Verizon plans to retire a number of copper facilities and replace them with fiber facilities to provide services over its fiber-to- the-home network infrastructure.

CenturyLink/Qwest filed public notice of network changes involving the retirement of copper in the Midvale, Utah wire center.  CenturyLink said that due to growth in the area, it plans to install fiber-based access to its customers by replacing copper loops with fiber loops using a fiber-to-the-home architecture.  The planned implementation date is December 20, 2017.

Maryland Establishes Office of Rural Broadband

Governor Hogan signed Executive Order 01.01.2017.14 establishing the Office of Rural Broadband.  The Office will assist and support local governments, tri-county councils, and key agencies and stakeholders to improve access to high speed internet.  Among other things, it will Identify and coordinate the delivery of resources to local jurisdictions, including identification of sources of funds, such as federal funding, that can be used to expand access to high speed internet, and assist those jurisdictions in applying to receive those funds.  As part of the keynote address at the Maryland Municipal League Summer Conference, the Governor said “This new Office of Rural Broadband will ensure that everyone in Maryland will finally be able to have access to high-speed Internet.”

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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.