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 and 11-10; FCC 25-34; FR ID 301047]</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) eliminates the professional engineer certification requirement for the biannual Broadband Data Collection filings and instead allows the biannual filings to be certified by a qualified engineer that has relevant minimum experience and education. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective July 1, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jamile Kadre, Broadband Data Task Force, by email at <E T="03">jamile.kadre@fcc.gov</E> or by phone at (202) 418-2245. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> in WC Docket Nos. 19-195 and 11-10, FCC 25-34, adopted on June 26, 2025, and released on June 26, 2025. The full text of this document is available online at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-takes-steps-streamline-broadband-data-collection.</E> To request this document in accessible formats for people with disabilities ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) or to request reasonable accommodations ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis</HD> The 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 <E T="03">Report and Order</E> will not be submitted to OMB for review under section 3507(d) of the PRA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission will send a copy of the <E T="03">Report and Order</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, <E T="03">see</E> 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> In this Order, the Commission takes steps to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens on broadband internet access service providers while ensuring that the Commission continues to receive accurate, granular data on broadband internet access service availability and quality of service as part of the Broadband Data Collection (BDC). Accurate BDC data enables the Commission, other federal agencies, state, local, and Tribal governments, and other interested stakeholders to carefully target resources to the locations where broadband services are needed most. The Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (Broadband DATA Act) requires fixed broadband service providers to report broadband availability on a location-by-location basis and mobile wireless broadband service providers to report their coverage areas using standardized propagation modeling parameters. Consistent with the Broadband DATA Act's requirement that submissions include a certification from a corporate officer of the provider that the data are true and correct, the Commission requires providers to have a corporate officer and either a corporate engineering officer or certified professional engineer (PE) certify their filings. Today, the Commission takes an important step to alleviate the regulatory burden that a professional engineer certify a provider's BDC biannual filings. Specifically, in response to concerns about the unavailability of professional engineers and the unnecessary costs and other burdens the requirement places on filers, this Fifth Report and Order eliminates the professional engineer certification requirement and replaces it with a requirement that biannual filings be certified by a qualified engineer (as defined herein). The Broadband DATA Act requires internet service providers to “include in each [BDC] submission a certification from a corporate officer of the provider that the officer has examined the information contained in the submission and that, to the best of the officer's actual knowledge, information, and belief, all statements of fact contained in the submission are true and correct.” In addition to the corporate officer certification, and in an effort to adopt appropriate measures to ensure that providers engage in sufficient analysis of their data and submit accurate information to the BDC, the Commission also adopted a requirement that providers submit certifications to the accuracy of their biannual submissions by a certified professional engineer or a corporate engineering officer. For purposes of this requirement, a “certified professional engineer” is an engineer possessing a professional license by virtue of completing or passing multiple educational and testing requirements so as to earn a license from a state licensure board. For every BDC biannual filing period to date, WCB, OEA, and WTB have waived the professional engineering certification requirement. In May 2022, before the first BDC filing window opened, the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling or Limited Waiver, requesting that the Commission clarify that a BDC filing may be certified by either a professional engineer or an otherwise-qualified engineer who does not hold a professional license. In its Petition, CCA noted that “[t]he [Radio Frequency (RF)] engineering community is characterized by a scarcity of licensed [professional engineers (PEs)]” because “[s]tate professional licensing boards issue PE licenses based on the fulfillment of state-specific education, examination, and experience requirements [and] states have generally not required PE licensure for RF engineers.” CCA continued that “[t]he experience and expertise developed by RF engineers through their work provides comprehensive skills relevant to broadband deployment [and] . . . provides skills comparable to, and perhaps more relevant than, general licensure through the PE . . . exam process.” Subsequently, WCB, OEA, and WTB issued a Declaratory Ruling and Limited Waiver granting CCA's request for the first three filing cycles of the BDC. In the Declaratory Ruling, the Bureaus and Office clarified that when a fixed or mobile provider submits a certification from a corporate engineering officer, such corporate engineering officer does not need to be a certified professional engineer. In the Limited Waiver, the Bureaus and Office waived the requirement that a fixed or mobile provider submit a certification from a “certified professional engineer,” allowing instead the submission of a certification completed by an otherwise-qualified engineer. WCB, OEA, and WTB found that “the lack of certified professional engineers specializing in RF engineering and broadband network design constitutes `special circumstances' that warrant a deviation from the general rule that certified professional engineers must certify the accuracy of providers' biannual BDC broadband data submissions.” The Limited Waiver specified that an otherwise-qualified engineer must meet certain minimum qualifications in lieu of state professional engineering licensure in order to certify a BDC filing: • A bachelor's or postgraduate degree in electrical engineering, electronic technology, or another similar technical discipline, and at least seven years of relevant experience in broadband network design and/or performance; or • Specialized training relevant to broadband network engineering and design, deployment, and/or performance, and at least ten years of relevant experience in broadband network engineering, design, and/or performance. In August 2023, CCA and USTelecom-The Broadband Association sought an extension of the Limited Waiver, arguing that circumstances had not changed for the industry in the year since the 2022 BDC PE Order was issued. In November 2023, WCB, OEA, and WTB granted the request and extended the Limited Waiver for another three filing cycles ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> data as of December 31, 2023, June 30, 2024, and December 31, 2024), subject to certain conditions. The conditions outlined in the extension are that “any provider availing itself of this waiver must: (1) have its BDC submissions certified by an engineering professional with the qualifications specified in the [2022 BDC PE Order]; (2) preserve, for the applicable `as-of' filing date(s), certain categories of underlying network information for each submission filed under the waiver; and (3) upon request, expeditiously provide this network information to the Commission.” In July 2024, the Commission sought comment on whether it should eliminate the professional engineering certification requirement and proposed that all providers be required to retain their infrastructure data in support of their biannual submissions upon request as part of the Commission's efforts to validate availability data. The Commission proposed to permanently eliminate the requirement under § 1.7004(d) that an engineering certification, to the extent not submitted by a corporate engineering officer, must be submitted by a certified professional engineer. Under its proposal, the Commission would amend the rule to state that all providers must submit a certification to the accuracy of their submissions by a “qualified engineer,” consistent with the engineering qualifications that WCB, OEA, and WTB adopted in the 2022 BDC PE Order and the PE Waiver Extension Order. Additionally, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━