Promoting the Integrity and Security of Telecommunications Certification Bodies, Measurement Facilities, and the Equipment Authorization Program

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 2</CFR> <DEPDOC>[ET Docket No. 24-136; FR ID 228432]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Promoting the Integrity and Security of Telecommunications Certification Bodies, Measurement Facilities, and the Equipment Authorization Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes to strengthen requirements and oversight relating to telecommunications certification bodies and measurement facilities to help ensure the integrity of these entities for purposes of the equipment authorization, to better protect national security, and to advance the Commission's comprehensive strategy to build a more secure and resilient communications supply chain. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before September 3, 2024 and reply comments are due on or before October 3, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by ET Docket No. 24-136, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Federal Communications Commission's Website: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1988).</E> • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail (although the Commission continues to experience delays in receiving U.S. Postal Service mail). All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the Commission to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530 or TTY: 202-418-0432. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jamie Coleman of the Office of Engineering and Technology, at <E T="03">Jamie.Coleman@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-2705. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,</E> ET Docket No. 24-136; FCC 24-58, adopted on May 23, 2024, and released on May 24, 2024. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and can be downloaded at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-58A1.pdf.</E> Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) by sending an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or calling the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <E T="03">Comment Period and Filing Procedures.</E> Pursuant to sections 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates provided in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of this document. Comments must be filed in ET Docket No. 24-136. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). <E T="03">See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings,</E> 63 FR 24121 (1998). • All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. If more than one docket or rulemaking number appears in the caption of this proceeding, filers must submit two additional copies for each additional docket or rulemaking number. ○ Commercial overnight mail (other than U.S. Postal Service Express Mail and Priority Mail) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. ○ U.S. Postal Service first-class, Express, and Priority mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">Ex Parte Presentations.</E> These proceedings shall be treated as “permit-but-disclose” proceedings in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with rule 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act.</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice and comment rulemakings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” 5 U.S.C. 603, 605(b). The RFA, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, was amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (SBREFA), Public Law 104-121, Title II, 110 Stat. 857 (1996). Accordingly, the Commission has prepared an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning the possible/potential impact of the rule and policy changes contained in this document. The IRFA is found in Appendix B of the FCC document, <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-58A1.pdf.</E> The Commission invites the general public, in particular small businesses, to comment on the IRFA. Comments must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA and must be filed by the deadlines for comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking indicated in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of this document. <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act:</E> This document may contain proposed or modified information collection requirements. Therefore, the Commission seeks comment on potential new or revised information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. If the Commission adopts any new or revised information collection requirements, the Commission will publish a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> inviting the general public and the Office of Management and Budget to comment on the information collection requirements, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comments on how it might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Accessing Materials</HD> <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 1189-9, a summary of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <E T="03">OPEN Government Data Act.</E> The OPEN Government Data Act, requires agencies to make “public data assets” available under an open license and as “open Government data assets,” <E T="03">i.e.,</E> in machine-readable, open format, unencumbered by use restrictions other than intellectual property rights, and based on an open standard that is maintained by a standards organization. 44 U.S.C. 3502(20), (22), 3506(b)(6)(B). This requirement is to be implemented “in accordance with guidance by the Director” of the OMB. (OMB has not yet issued final guidance. The term “public data asset” means “a data asset, or part thereof, maintained by the Federal Government that has been, or may be, released to the public, including any data asset, or part thereof, subject to disclosure under [the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)].” 44 U.S.C. 3502(22). A “data asset” is “a collection of data elements or data ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━