Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, Broadband Mapping Revisions, LFAs on Aug. 1 FCC Agenda
The Aug. 1 FCC meeting will see voting on creation of a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund that, Chairman Ajit Pai blogged Wednesday, would represent the agency's "single biggest step yet to close the rural digital divide," connecting millions to broadband…
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networks. Also up is a new route to broadband mapping and revisions to local franchise authority rules, the latter as expected (see 1907090030). Pai said the fund would provide $20.4 billion over the next 10 years supporting rural networks, operating in two phases using a multi-round, descending-clock reverse auction to ensure maximum coverage at the lowest possible cost. He said the first phase would target areas already unserved while the second focus on areas not won in the first phase and areas that are partially served. He said his proposal also would set a minimum speed of 25/3 Mbps for the auction and favor services with lower latency, and open the auction to ISPs ranging from small cable companies and rural telephone companies to electric co-ops and fixed wireless companies. Pai said the digital opportunity data collection broadband mapping approach would collect granular broadband availability maps from service providers using shapefiles, with those maps verified through crowdsourcing. Pai said the LFA order "would prevent local authorities from unlawfully evading the five percent statutory cap on franchise fees" and make clear franchising authorities can't regulate non-cable services offered by cable operators over their cable systems. Such fees and regulations chill broadband deployment, he said. Also on the agenda will be changes to the Rural Health Care program, which provides financial support to help rural healthcare providers obtain communications services at discounted rates for telehealth services, including a new route for calculating the rates that healthcare providers pay. The agenda will feature 833 toll-free auction procedures, with the auction to be conducted in December; updated technical rules for low-power FM stations to allow greater use of directional antennas and of FM booster stations; new licensing rules for small satellites (see 1907090030); caller ID spoofing rules (see 1907080063); and rules allowing for calling 911 directly on multiline telephone systems.