Satellite Industry Faces Higher Regulatory Fees Under New FCC Fee Schedule
The FCC opted to put a heavier burden on satellite operators to pay the regulatory fees that fund agency operations, in an order released Friday. The agency did not make any decisions on whether to reallocate agency employees for the purpose of calculating fees after the wireless industry raised concerns.
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The FCC emphasized that the changes are part of a process of updating fee payments, and more changes could be on the way (http://bit.ly/Z61BrX). “We continue our efforts to examine areas where we can improve our regulatory fee process to better reflect changes in the industry and at the Commission, and this Report and Order is another step in this process,” it said.
The order shifts the percentage of the costs of the International Bureau that must be supported by satellite operators. The agency found that the current assessment for the submarine cable category “does not fairly take into account the Commission’s minimal oversight and regulation of the industry.” Under the revised schedule, satellite companies will be responsible for 64.28 percent of international regulatory fees, up from 59 percent. Submarine cable payments drop accordingly, from 41 percent of international regulatory fees to 35.72 percent.
The FCC also opted to drop an exemption from fees for broadcasters operating AM radio stations. Under past rules, licensees operating a standard band AM station (540-1600 kHz) linked to an AM expanded band station (1605-1705 kHz) were subject to regulatory fees for the standard band station only. The FCC said it offered the exemption to encourage movement to the expanded band and alleviate congestion in the standard band. Some AM expanded band broadcasters have chosen to operate exclusively in the expanded band; at least two opted to retain their standard band licenses, the agency said: “We find that there is no longer a reason to provide this regulatory fee exemption to AM broadcasters.”
The FCC provided relief for the smallest regulated companies, at the urging of the American Cable Association. The FCC previously exempted companies from paying a fee if the amount they owed was under $10, and the order raises that amount to $500. “ACA has more than 100 members that serve fewer than 500 subscribers,” ACA President Matthew Polka said Tuesday in a news release. “Based on this year’s cable regulatory fee rate of $0.99 per subscriber, many of these small operators likely will be relieved from regulatory costs that can be reinvested in their networks and used to keep rates down for consumers when their fee obligation is calculated next year."
The FCC declined to make any changes to how the costs of paying for FCC full-time equivalent employees are allocated for the purposes of charging fees. The wireless industry had opposed proposed FTE shifts and other changes, which CTIA and other commenters said would impose an unfair burden on wireless (CD July 9 p11). “We find that additional information and examination is needed to better understand, at a more granular level, the number of FTEs performing work related to the various types of regulatees throughout the communications industry,” the FCC said. The work of the Wireless, Wireline and Media bureaus “has, in many cases, converged over time and their regulation of various types of regulatees involves similar issues and generates common Commission costs,” the agency said.
The FCC’s overall budget for FY 2014 is $449.8 million, and Congress directed the agency to recover about $339.8 million through regulatory fees and $98.7 million through revenue retained from spectrum auctions.