Public Notice

The first meeting of the World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee will be held on August 2, 2016; at 11:00 am in the Federal Communications Commission Meeting Room. A draft agenda of the meeting is attached. The Advisory Committee’s objective is to provide the FCC with advice, technical support and recommended proposals for the WRC-19. At its initial meeting, the Advisory Committee will consider formation of its Informal Working Groups (IWGs), assignment of WRC-19 agenda items to the IWGs, scheduling and other organizational matters. This meeting is open to the public.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Thursday, July 14, 2016:
Spectrum Frontiers: The Commission will consider a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would make spectrum in bands above 24 GHz available for flexible use wireless services, including for next-generation, or 5G, networks and technologies.
Advancing Technology Transitions: The Commission will consider a Declaratory Ruling, Second Report and Order, and Order on Reconsideration that adopts a framework to guide transitions to next-generation communications technologies while protecting the interests of consumers and competition.

This Public Notice seeks comment on tentative findings for the 2014 Biennial Report to Congress on the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA).

Public comment will assist the Federal Communications Commission in assessing the following: (1) the level of compliance with the CVAA’s mandates requiring telecommunications and advanced communications services and equipment to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; (2) the effect of related recordkeeping and enforcement obligations; and (3) the extent to which accessibility barriers still exist with respect to new communications technologies.

The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will submit the final Report to Congress by October 8, 2014. Interested parties may file comments on or before September 11, 2014.

On January 16, 2014, Sprint filed a petition requesting a limited waiver of the Federal Communications Commission’s rule that restricts access to the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Numbering Directory to the TRS Numbering Administrator and Internet-based TRS providers.

Specifically, Sprint requests a waiver of this rule to allow Sprint, as a provider of Federal Relay services, to load telephone numbers for its federal video relay service (VRS), including “front door” toll-free numbers and ten-digit numbers into the TRS Numbering Directory.

Sprint asserts that, because these numbers are not currently in the TRS Numbering Directory, federal employees who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and have been assigned a Federal VRS number are unable to make point-to point video calls to other deaf or hard-of-hearing federal employees.

Sprint further asserts that permitting these “front door” toll-free numbers and ten-digit numbers into the database will allow deaf and hard-of-hearing federal employees to make point-to-point video calls, increase the ability of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to reach federal employees, and reduce the number of calls that must be supported by the Interstate TRS Fund.

The FCC invites interested parties to file comments on the Sprint petition within by Sept 8, 2014 and to file reply comments no later Sept 18, 2014.

Although the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless hearing aid compatibility rules have been in place for nearly a decade, T-Mobile USA failed to provide the minimum number of hearing aid-compatible handset models required under the rules during calendar years 2009 and 2010.

To that end, the FCC imposes a penalty of $819,000 against T-Mobile, for failing to offer to consumers the required number of hearing aid-compatible digital wireless handset models for nearly two years.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has resolved its investigation into whether Time Warner Cable complied with the FCC’s network outage reporting requirements.

TWC has failed to file a substantial number of reports with respect to a series of reportable wireline and Voice over Internet Protocol network outages. TWC admits that its failure to timely file the required network outage reports violated the FCC’s rules.

To resolve the investigation, TWC will pay a civil penalty of $1.1 million and implement a three-year compliance plan to ensure future compliance with the FCC’s network outage reporting rules.

In the 2013 Inmate Calling Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), the Federal Communications Commission took numerous steps to address high interstate inmate calling services (ICS) rates.

A Partial Stay Order by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in January 2014 does not affect the ordinary operation of the FCC’s complaint process under section 208 of the Act. Moreover, the Partial Stay Order issued did not disturb the FCC’s determinations regarding site commissions Pursuant to a complaint that challenges the lawfulness of an ICS provider’s interstate ICS rates, the FCC will conduct an adjudication to determine whether those rates are just and reasonable under section 201 of the section 201” of the 1934 Communications Act.

As part of that review, the Commission will follow its established practice and consider whether the challenged rates exceed the reasonable costs of providing ICS and, in that connection, will examine any payment of site commissions by ICS providers to correctional facilities. Any interstate ICS rates that are found to exceed the recovery of costs reasonably related to the provision of ICS may be found unjust and unreasonable under section 201 of the 1934 Act.

Such a finding may result in lowering interstate ICS rates (even if those rates are already at or below the interstate ICS rate caps adopted in the Order). It may also result in an order of refunds to end users.

T-Mobile USA and CenturyLink have filed an application seeking the assignment of thirteen Lower 700 MHz A Block licenses from CenturyLink to T-Mobile.

The subject licenses cover geographic areas throughout the United States. The proposed transaction involves the transfer of spectrum; no customers or networks would be transferred.

The Federal Communications Commission’s preliminary review indicates that, as a result of the proposed transaction, T-Mobile would acquire 12 megahertz of Lower 700 MHz A Block spectrum in 179 counties in all or parts of 50 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs) in parts of various states. Post-transaction T-Mobile would hold 32 to 82 megahertz of spectrum in total in these 50 CMAs, including 12 megahertz of spectrum below 1 GHz.

Interested parties must file petitions to deny no later than September 3, 2014. Oppositions to such pleadings must be filed no later than September 15, 2014. Replies to such pleadings must be filed no later than September 22, 2014.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau outlined the process that will be used to award up to $100 million in rural broadband experiment support to bring next-generation voice and broadband service to high-cost areas of the country.

Specifically, the FCC summarized the procedures, terms, and conditions governing the submission of rural broadband experiments applications, the post-selection review of winning bidders and other important information for parties seeking rural broadband experiment funding.

Formal applications for participation in the rural broadband experiments are due 90 days after the July 14, 2014 release of the Rural Broadband Experiments Order. The deadline for applications will be on October 14, 2014.

On August 15, the Office of Management and Budget approved a plan to collect data from providers and purchasers of special access service for the purpose of conducting a comprehensive evaluation of competition in the marketplace.

Special access lines are dedicated high-capacity connections used by businesses and institutions to transmit voice and data traffic. Special access services are widely used to transport massive amounts of voice and data traffic from cell phone towers and buildings, as well as carry transactions from ATM machines and credit card readers.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau announces that it will proceed with the collection of data adopted by the FCC in 2012 for a comprehensive analysis of the special access market.