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Proposed Rule

Review of Submarine Cable Landing License Rules and Procedures To Assess Evolving National Security, Law Enforcement, Foreign Policy, and Trade Policy Risks; Schedule of Application Fees

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This is a proposed rule published in the Federal Register by Federal Communications Commission. Proposed rules invite public comment before becoming final, legally binding regulations.

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Document Details

Document Number2025-03718
TypeProposed Rule
PublishedMar 13, 2025
Effective Date-
RIN-
Docket IDOI Docket No. 24-523, MD Docket No. 24-524
Text FetchedYes

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Related Documents (by RIN/Docket)

Doc #TypeTitlePublished
2025-19657 Proposed Rule Review of Submarine Cable Landing Licens... Oct 27, 2025
2025-19658 Final Rule Review of Submarine Cable Landing Licens... Oct 27, 2025

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Full Document Text (80,190 words · ~401 min read)

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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 0, 1, and 43</CFR> <DEPDOC>[OI Docket No. 24-523, MD Docket No. 24-524; FCC 24-119; FR ID 282229]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Review of Submarine Cable Landing License Rules and Procedures To Assess Evolving National Security, Law Enforcement, Foreign Policy, and Trade Policy Risks; Schedule of Application Fees</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) takes another important step to protect the Nation's submarine cable infrastructure from threats in an evolving national security and law enforcement landscape by undertaking the first major comprehensive review of the Commission's submarine cable rules since 2001. This review seeks to develop forward-looking rules to better protect submarine cables, identify and mitigate harms affecting national security and law enforcement, and facilitate the deployment of submarine cables and capacity to the market. Among other things, the Commission proposes to adopt a three-year periodic reporting requirement for submarine cable landing licenses; in the alternative, the Commission seeks comment on shortening the current 25-year submarine cable license term or adopting a shorter license term in combination with periodic reporting. The Commission also proposes or seeks comment on codifying the Commission's legal jurisdiction and other legal requirements in its rules to provide regulatory certainty to submarine cable owners and operators. Additionally, the Commission proposes and seeks comment on appropriate applicant and application requirements to account for the evolution of technologies and facilities and changes in the national security landscape over the last two decades and to ensure the Commission has targeted and granular information regarding the ownership, control, use of a submarine cable system, and other things, which are critical to the Commission's review to assess potential national security risks and other important public interest factors. Further, the Commission seeks comment on improving the quality of the circuit capacity data and facilitating the sharing of such information with other Federal agencies. Through these proposals, the Commission seeks to ensure that the Commission is exercising appropriate oversight of submarine cables to safeguard U.S. communications networks. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before April 14, 2025; and reply comments are due on or before May 12, 2025. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before May 12, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 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 indicated in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). You may submit comments, identified by OI Docket No. 24-523 and MD Docket No. 24-524, 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 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 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 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). Send a copy of your comment on the proposed information collection to Cathy Williams, FCC, via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> Include in the comments the OMB control number 3060-0944. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Desiree Hanssen, Attorney Advisor, Telecommunications and Analysis Division, Office of International Affairs, at (202) 418-0887 or via email at <E T="03">Desiree.Hanssen@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Cathy Williams, Office of Managing Director, at (202) 418-2918 or <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), in OI Docket No. 24-523 and MD Docket No. 24-524; FCC 24-119, adopted on November 21, 2024, and released on November 22, 2024. The full text of this document is available on the FCC's website at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-119A1.pdf</E> . The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is adopted pursuant to sections 1, 4(i), 4(j), 201-255, 303(r), 403, 413 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 154(j), 201-255, 303(r), 403, 413, and the Cable Landing License Act of 1921, 47 U.S.C. 34-39, and Executive Order 10530, section 5(a) (May 12, 1954) reprinted as amended in 3 U.S.C. 301. To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities, send an email to <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document is available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings</E> . <E T="03">Initial Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis.</E> This document contains proposed information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. Public and agency comments are due May 12, 2025. Comments should address: (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) way to further reduce the information collection burden on small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. 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 comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</HD> 1. In the <E T="03">NPRM</E> , the Commission initiates a comprehensive review of its submarine cable rules to develop forward-looking rules to better protect submarine cables, identify and mitigate harms affecting national security and law enforcement, and facilitate the deployment of submarine cables and capacity to the market. The Commission believes this proceeding will improve Commission review and oversight of submarine cable landing licenses and ensure each licensee continues to serve the public interest in an evolving national security and law enforcement landscape. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Legal Authority Under the Cable Landing License Act of 1921</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Commission Jurisdiction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">a. General License Requirement</HD> 2. As an initial matter, the Commission proposes to codify in its rules when a submarine cable license is required under the Cable Landing License Act. The Cable Landing License Act states that “[n]o person shall land or operate in the United States any submarine cable directly or indirectly connecting the United States with any foreign country, or connecting one portion of the United States with any other portion thereof, unless a written license to land or operate such cable has been issued by the President.” The Cable Landing License Act further states that “[t]he conditions of sections 34 to 39 of this title shall not apply to cables, all of which, including both terminals, lie wholly within the continental United States.”  <SU>1</SU ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 551k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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