Establishing the Digital Opportunity Data Collection; Modernizing the FCC Form 477 Data Program

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket Nos. 19-195, 11-10; FCC 24-72; FR ID 233875]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Establishing the Digital Opportunity Data Collection; Modernizing the FCC Form 477 Data Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) codifies the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) challenge process deadline as required by the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, delegates authority to the offices and bureaus to conduct BDC audits, and clarifies that providers must submit detailed data to seek restoration for those locations or areas on the National Broadband Map (NBM). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective September 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information, please contact, Will Holloway, Broadband Data Task Force, at <E T="03">William.Holloway@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-2334. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Fourth Report and Order in WC Docket Nos. 19-195 and 11-10, released on July 12, 2024. The full text of this document is available at the following internet address: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-takes-steps-update-broadband-data-collection-processes</E> or by using the Commission's EDOCS web page at <E T="03">www.fcc.gov/edocs.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> The Fourth Report and Order rulemaking required under the Broadband DATA Act is exempt from review by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and from the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. As a result, the Fourth Report and Order will not be submitted to OMB for review under section 3507(d) of the PRA. <E T="03">Congressional Review Act.</E> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the Fourth Report and Order and Declaratory Ruling to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). The Commission will submit the draft Fourth Report and Order and Declaratory Ruling to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, for concurrence as to whether this rule is “major” or “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Codifying the Adjudication Deadlines for Availability Challenges</HD> 1. In the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA), Congress amended the Broadband DATA Act to require the Commission to resolve any challenges received as part of the BDC “not later than 90 days after the date on which a final response by a provider to a challenge to the accuracy of a map . . . is complete.” Since the inception of the availability challenge processes, the Commission has followed this deadline. However, in the Fourth Report and Order we take steps to codify this deadline and memorialize the Commission's challenge processes in the BDC rules. 2. The following paragraphs describe how the Commission has implemented this 90-day deadline for processing fixed and mobile service challenges, and how we will amend our rules to reflect these existing practices and the minor modifications to those practices. For each type of challenge, we indicate the date on which we deem a provider's response to the challenge to be “final” and “complete” for purposes of triggering the 90-day deadline required by the IIJA. As set forth in the proposed rule published elsewhere in this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , we tentatively conclude and seek comment on whether this deadline should apply to fixed and mobile availability challenges only, and not to challenges to data in the Fabric. 3. Fixed Service Challenges. For challenges to the accuracy of fixed broadband availability data and coverage maps, the Commission's rules currently provide that “within 60 days of receiving an alert” to a challenge, “a provider shall reply in the portal by: (i) [a]ccepting the allegation(s) raised by the challenger . . . or (ii) [d]enying the allegation(s) raised by the challenger, in which case the provider shall provide evidence . . . that the provider serves (or could and is willing to serve) the challenged location.” If the provider accepts the allegations raised by the challenger, the provider must “submit a correction for the challenged location in the online portal within 30 days of its portal reply.” The rules state that a provider's failure to respond to the challenge within the applicable timeframe “shall result in a finding against the provider.” “If the provider denies the allegation(s) raised by the challenger,” the rules state that “the provider and the challenger shall have 60 days after the provider submits its reply to attempt to resolve the challenge.” The rules further provide that if the parties are unable to reach consensus within 60 days after submission of the provider's reply in the portal, then the affected provider shall report the status of efforts to resolve the challenge in the online portal, after which the Commission will review the evidence and make a determination, either: (i) in favor of the challenger, in which case the provider shall update its BDC information within 30 days of the decision; or (ii) in favor of the provider, in which case the location will no longer be subject to the “in dispute/pending resolution” designation on the coverage maps. 4. To codify the requirements of the IIJA, we amend our rules to state that in cases where a fixed broadband provider disputes the allegations raised by the challenger, the response from the provider will be final and complete when the provider reports on the status of its efforts to resolve the challenge, at which time, the 90-day deadline for adjudication of the challenge will begin to run. For example, if a consumer submits a challenge to a fixed provider's availability data on February 28 and, after initial review, Commission staff accepts the challenge and alerts the provider (via the BDC system) of the challenge on March 1, the service provider would have until April 30 to either concede or dispute the challenge allegations (by submitting an “initial response” to the challenge in the BDC system). If the provider disputes the challenge allegation on April 30, then the parties would have until June 29 to attempt to resolve the challenge and for the service provider to report on the outcome of those discussions by submitting a “final response” to the challenge in the BDC system. This status report is the “final response by [the] provider.” Accordingly, if the provider continues to dispute the challenge in its final response ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the challenge has not been resolved by the parties), the 90-day deadline will commence once the provider submits its final response. If the provider submits its final response on the deadline of June 29, Commission staff would thus be required to adjudicate the challenge no later than September 27. 5. The only challenges that require FCC adjudication are those that the challenged provider does not concede and for which the challenger and the challenged provider are unable to reach a consensus. We therefore find that the deadline for FCC action most appropriately begins once the provider has submitted its final response reporting on the status of the parties' efforts to resolve a disputed challenge. Starting the 90-day period when a provider reports on the status of the parties' efforts to resolve the challenge, and not earlier, is consistent with the statutory objective that the adjudication period begin “after the date on which a final response by a provider to a challenge to the accuracy of a map . . . is complete.” We find that this process will also help the Commission adjudicate challenges efficiently because Commission staff will be able to begin the process of review and adjudication as soon as they have information on the outcome of the dispute resolution process. 6. The process we outline above is largely consistent with current Commission practice; however, we modify the existing process in two respects. First, the 90-day deadline for Commission adjudication of a fixed challenge will begin on the day after the service provider submits the status report, regardless of whether that report is provided on or before the 60th day allowed for under the rules. Our former practice was to begin the 90-day period on the day after the deadline for submission of the status report, even when the challenged provider submits the report prior to the deadline. Based on the Commission's experience adjudicating challenges, this change in our process is appropriate in order to more expeditiously adjudicate fixed challenges when a final status report is filed prior to the end of the full 60-day period. Second, we clarify that when a provider corrects or updates its final response before the end of the 60-day resolution period, the adjudication period will restart upon the date of the recertification of the final response (unless the Commission has already adjudicated the challenge prior to the reversion of the final response). 7. Mobile Service Challenges. The Commission's rules provide that, for areas with a cognizable challenge to the accuracy of mobile broadband data and coverage maps, “providers either must submit a rebuttal to the challenge within a 60-day period of being notified of the challenge or concede and hav ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 108k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━