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

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket Nos. 19-195, 11-10; FCC 24-72; FR ID 233874]</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> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) seeks comment on proposed changes to the availability data filing and validation processes. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before September 16, 2024, and reply comments are due on or before October 15, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by WC Docket No. 19-195 and WC Docket No. 11-10, by any of the following methods: • <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. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <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 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 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">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act Statement.</E> The Commission seeks comment on proposed changes to the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) availability data filing process that would limit publication of data on “grandfathered” services, collect terrestrial fixed wireless spectrum authorization information, and additional certifications and supporting data from satellite broadband providers. Additionally, the Commission seeks comment on amendments and clarifications to several of its BDC data validation rules regarding data retention, sharing Fabric challenges with providers, the professional engineering certification requirement, audits and verification outcomes, restoring locations previously removed from the map, aligning reporting requirements for broadband availability and subscribership data, and adding a new rule section for Fabric challenges. Available at: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules.</E> This proceeding shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding 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 presenters 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 § 1.1206(b) of the Commission's rules. In proceedings governed by § 1.49(f) of the rules 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">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Summary of the Fourth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Modifications to the FCC's Availability Data Collection Requirements</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Limiting Publication of Data on “Grandfathered” Services</HD> 1. We seek comment on whether we should limit the publication of availability data to avoid the potential for releasing subscribership information, typically treated as confidential in other contexts, with respect to grandfathered services that providers are phasing out. 2. Background. The Broadband DATA Act mandates that the Commission collect data on the availability of “broadband internet access service” which, for purposes of the Act, “has the meaning given the term in § 8.1(b) of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation.” Under this rule, broadband internet access service is a “mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all internet endpoints, including any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up internet access service.” 3. In the Third Report and Order (86 FR 18124, April 7, 2021), the Commission clarified that all facilities-based providers of broadband internet access services are required to comply with the requirements of the BDC. Fixed broadband internet access service providers must report the maximum advertised download and upload speeds associated with the service available at a location. Accordingly, the BDC collects availability data from a wide array of service providers encompassing a broad range of technologies and service types. The data collection covers both new and novel services, as well as legacy services that providers are in the process of permanently discontinuing. In the latter case, a filer may provide facilities-based broadband internet access service to existing subscribers at particular locations, but no longer market or sell that service to potential or new customers in the area and would not continue offering the service to a location once the existing subscriber disconnects that service at the location. In such instances, the effect of the filing requirement is that the availability data submitted by the provider for this service could essentially be a list of current subscribers of the service. The Commission routinely treats subscribership data submitted as part of the FCC's Form 477 as confidential. 4. Certain providers have expressed concern that publishing availability data for grandfathered services could reveal confidential subscribership information. For example, Verizon recently requested confidential treatment of its incumbent local exchange carriers' DSL service availability data submitted as part of its December 2023 BDC filing because the data reflect “only those locations where [Verizon] currently provide[s] service to an existing customer, thereby resulting in the reporting of confidential customer-identifiable location and service information of those customers.” Verizon noted that “[a]lthough the Commission generally favors disclosure of service availability information, the nature of the DSL availability information [Verizon is] required to report will reveal the precise number of [its] subscribers in an area, plus the customer address and type of service provided to each DSL customer and cannot be masked by non-customer locations where the service is no longer offered.” We seek comment on whether publication of availability data for grandfathered services should be limited. 5. Discussion. We propose to amend our rules to permit filers to indicate that the service offered at a location is a grandfathered service only. We further propose that in cases where a provider submits a request for confidential tr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 166k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━