Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau, in consultation with the Office of the Managing Director, announces the amount of unused funds for the Rural Health Care (RHC) Program that has been carried forward for funding year 2023.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $12 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

The Federal Communications Commission temporarily waives, on its own motion, the application of the budget control mechanism for rate-of-return carriers that receive high-cost universal service support

The Federal Communications Commission announced that Etheric Communications defaulted on its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) bid. Auction 904 support will not be authorized for the winning bids in California. The FCC considers winning bidders and assignees to be in default for these bids and subject to forfeiture.

The Federal Communications Commission announced that there is sufficient funding available to fully meet the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) estimated demand for category one and category two requests for E-Rate-supported services for the funding year 2023. On March 29, 2023, USAC submitted a demand estimate for the E-Rate program for funding year 2023. USAC estimates the total demand for the funding year 2023 will be $2.944 billion, which includes estimated demand for category one services of $1.658 billion and $1.286 billion for category two services.

The Federal Communications Commission took a holistic approach to expand the use of over 1 gigahertz of prime mid-band spectrum in the 12 GHz bands by ensuring stable spectrum access for current and next-generation satellite service while also empowering advanced terrestrial wireless services. The FCC adopted rules to preserve spectrum between 12.2-12.7 GHz for current and future satellite services. The FCC also proposed policies that would position the 12.7-13.25 GHz band to support flexible terrestrial wireless use, including 6G wireless services.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the agenda for its June 2023 Open Commission Meeting. In June 2023, the FCC is:

Since the passage of the Broadband DATA Act, the Federal Communications Commission has worked carefully to implement the requirements of the law and to begin the iterative data collection and challenge processes envisioned by the Act through the creation of its Broadband Data Collection program. As required by the Broadband DATA Act, the FCC has built an entirely new data-collection system for ingesting, validating, and aggregating both provider data for download and publication on the National Broadband Map. To do so, the Broadband DATA Act required the Commission to develop the Broadband