Totah Communications asked the FCC for a waiver after the Oklahoma-based company missed a Connect America Fund filing deadline because of “technical difficulties.” Those “difficulties prevented the proper certification of performance testing, in which the data had been uploaded and was in full compliance with the testing requirements,” said a filing Friday in docket 10-90. “The subsequent missed certification, which is procedural rather than substantive, has no impact on the Commission’s or [the Universal Service Administrative Co.’s] ability to assess Totah’s compliance with broadband deployment requirement,” it said. “Totah’s penalty was assessed as a pro-rata amount of its universal support allocation for each day beyond the compliance deadline,” which amounts to an estimated $186,278, “an extremely severe penalty given that Totah fulfilled all other testing requirements and one that will impose a financial hardship on the company as it seeks to provide voice and broadband to its Southeastern Kansas and Northeastern Oklahoma customers.”
The FCC Wireline Bureau granted in part Broadband VI’s (BBVI) petition for waiver of its 40% deployment milestone deadline under the Connect USVI Fund, but only until June 30. The original deadline was Dec. 31, 2024. The company sought a waiver through the end of this year. “We find that the public interest is served by granting an additional brief waiver to allow BBVI to come into compliance as quickly as possible with commitments it made as a recipient” of USF support “for the benefit of all residents in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said an order in Monday’s Daily Digest.
President Donald Trump signed off Saturday on a continuing resolution that extends current federal funding levels for the FCC, NTIA and other agencies through Sept. 30. The Senate voted 54-46 Friday night to approve the House-passed CR, as expected (see 2503140069).
The FCC’s outage reporting rules and its history of assessing large penalties for violations are leading to public safety answering points (PSAPs) being heavily burdened by notifications, said attorneys, trade groups and public safety associations. New rules that go into effect April 15 are likely to exacerbate the issue, they said during an FCBA virtual panel discussion Monday.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks plans to resign this spring, he said in a statement Tuesday. An FCC official told us it’s not yet clear if there's a replacement Democratic commissioner lined up. Starks previously signaled that he wouldn’t leave the agency if his departure would shift the FCC to a Republican majority.
Non-geostationary orbit satellite operators Kineis and Myriota are urging the FCC to incorporate a satellite system's mass into determining the regulatory fees that a satellite operator is charged. In a docket 24-85 filing posted Friday, Kineis recapped meetings with staffers from the four FCC commissioners' offices. Kineis told them that its system parameters are similar to the small satellite category envisioned in the space regulatory fee alternatives proceeding (see 2502260017), but those parameters are also very different from virtually all systems other than Myriota's. Kineis said that while other countries often look at frequency use in determining regulatory fees, Kineis' frequency use in the U.S. is much less than many small satellite systems. While the fee alternatives Further NPRM would have it pay close to $145,000 annually in regulatory fees, Kineis said paying two to three times the small satellite regulatory fee -- which would be $25,000 to $35,000 -- would be appropriate for its network. The number of satellites in a constellation doesn't directly correlate with its regulatory burden and complexity, and it's necessary to factor in the total mass of satellites because it's a proxy for characteristics that implicate complexity and regulatory burden, like greater frequency use and larger potential for orbital debris, Kineis said. Recapping meetings with the office of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and the Space Bureau, Myriota also backed incorporating system mass into regulatory fees.
The FCC can grease the path for increased numbers of commercial space launches if it requires launch operators to submit launch spectrum coordination information to a third-party coordinator five to 10 days before launch, according to SpaceX. In a docket 13-115 filing Friday recapping meetings with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff, SpaceX said many satellites lack launch windows until 10 days prior, so requiring initial coordination to start 60-80 days before launch would increase administrative burdens and uncertainty. SpaceX said a spectrum coordination time frame of 60-80 days would have meant 17 to 20 re-coordination efforts per launch for SpaceX in 2024 -- several times more than what would be required in a time frame of five to 10 days.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Friday on a proposed leasing agreement between AT&T and FTC Management Group. The companies proposed the agreement in July, said a notice in docket 25-138. AT&T and FTC would lease 40 MHz of 3.45 GHz spectrum to each other in the Florence and Sumter, South Carolina, partial economic areas. FTC would also lease AWS-1 and AWS-3 spectrum to AT&T in the Florence market. The swap would mean both companies would exceed the FCC’s “aggregation limit” of up to 40 MHz of spectrum in the 3.45 GHz band in various markets, the bureau said. Comments are due March 28, replies April 11.
The FCC Wireless Bureau officially signed off Friday on Summit Ridge’s closing of the 3.45 GHz relocation reimbursement clearinghouse (see 2503110014). “The 3.45 GHz band transition is complete with both incumbent operators, NBCUniversal and Nexstar Broadcasting, having relocated to the 2.9-3.0 GHz band and been reimbursed for their costs of relocation,” the bureau said in docket 19-348.
Comments are due May 16, replies June 16, on a January NPRM seeking comment on current 900 MHz broadband rules, according to a notice for Monday’s Federal Register. The FCC wants input about “whether the current 900 MHz broadband rules, such as the eligibility criteria, application requirements and procedures, licensing and operating rules, and technical requirements, are the appropriate vehicles for effectuating a ten megahertz broadband licensing framework,” the notice said.