Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Designates for Hearing Dispute Regarding C-Band Reimbursement Claims

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 27</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 21-333; DA 25-527; FR ID 302623]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Designates for Hearing Dispute Regarding C-Band Reimbursement Claims</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of hearing. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB or Bureau) grants Anuvu Licensing Holdings, LLC's Petition for <E T="03">De Novo</E> Review (Anuvu) and commences a hearing in connection with the 3.7-4.2 GHz Band (C-band) Transition Relocation Payment Clearinghouse's (RPC or clearinghouse) decision which denied Anuvu's cost reimbursement claims as they relate to its Raisting, Germany site. The issues designated for hearing are whether Anuvu met its burden of proof to demonstrate that the RPC erred in its finding that the claims were not compensable in-so-far as they relate to the Raisting site, which is located outside the United States; whether the RPC properly applied Commission guidance to the claims in question; and whether the disallowed amount of $960,694.35 should be reimbursed to Anuvu. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Anuvu shall file a written appearance by July 8, 2025 stating its intention to appear on the date fixed for the hearing and present evidence on the issues specified in the <E T="03">Hearing Designation Order.</E> </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Federal Communications Commission, 45 L St. NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Paul Powell of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, at (202) 418-1613 or <E T="03">Paul.Powell@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Hearing Designation Order, <E T="03">Anuvu Hearing Designation Order,</E> released on June 18, 2025. The full text of this document is available for public inspection online at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-25-527A1.pdf.</E> 1. By this <E T="03">Hearing Designation Order,</E> pursuant to sections 0.131, 0.331, and 27.1421(c) of the Commission's rules, the <E T="03">Expanding Flexible Use of the 3.7 to 4.2 GHz Band,</E> 35 FCC Rcd 2343 ( <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order</E> ), and the <E T="03">Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Announces Procedures for Appeals of Relocation Payment Clearinghouse Decisions,</E> WT Docket No. 21-333, Public Notice, DA 22-300 ( <E T="03">RPC Appeals Procedures Public Notice</E> ), the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (Bureau) grants a Petition for <E T="03">De Novo</E> Review (Petition), filed on April 4, 2025, by Anuvu Licensing Holdings, LLC. (Anuvu) and designates this case to be tried as a written proceeding under the Commission's rules for hearing proceedings, with the Administrative Law Judge serving as the presiding officer. As discussed below, the issues designated for hearing relate to the 3.7-4.2 GHz Band (C-band) Transition Relocation Payment Clearinghouse's (RPC or clearinghouse) decision which denied Anuvu's actual cost reimbursement claims as they relate to its Raisting, Germany (Raisting) earth station site. 2. In the <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order,</E> the Commission adopted rules to make 280 megahertz of mid-band spectrum available for flexible use throughout the contiguous United States by transitioning existing services out of the lower portion of the band and into the upper 200 megahertz of the C-band. The Commission required new 3.7 GHz Service licensees to reimburse the reasonable relocation costs of eligible Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) space station operators, incumbent FSS earth station operators, and incumbent Fixed Service licensees (collectively, incumbents) to transition out of the band. The <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order</E> also specified that incumbent FSS earth station operators may accept either: (1) reimbursement for their actual, reasonable relocation costs “needed to transition <E T="03">existing</E> operations in the contiguous United States out of the lower 300 megahertz of the C-band”; or (2) a lump sum reimbursement “based on the average, estimated costs of relocating all of their incumbent earth stations” to the upper 200 megahertz of the C-band. 3. The <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order</E> further provided for the creation of an independent clearinghouse to administer, subject to the Commission's rules and oversight, the cost-related aspects of the transition in a fair and transparent manner, “to mitigate financial disputes among stakeholders, and to collect and distribute payments in a timely manner.” To provide the clearinghouse, incumbents, and new 3.7 GHz Service licensees with a range of reasonable transition costs, the <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order</E> directed the Bureau to establish a cost catalog of the types of expenses that incumbents were likely to incur. The Commission directed the clearinghouse to presume as reasonable all actual cost reimbursement submissions that fall within the estimated range of costs in the <E T="03">Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Releases Final Cost Category Schedule for 3.7-4.2 GHz Band Relocation Expenses and Announces Process and Deadline for Lump Sum Elections,</E> 35 FCC Rcd 7967 ( <E T="03">Final Cost Catalog Public Notice</E> ) produced by the Bureau. Incumbents seeking reimbursement for their actual costs are not precluded from including costs that exceed the amounts in the <E T="03">Final Cost Catalog Public Notice,</E> so long as those costs are reasonably necessary to the transition, and incumbents provide justification to the clearinghouse. 4. All reimbursement claims—whether for actual costs or lump sum amounts—must be submitted to the clearinghouse for review pursuant to section 27.1416 of the Commission's rules. The clearinghouse “will determine in the first instance whether costs submitted for reimbursement are reasonable” and whether they comply with the requirements adopted in the <E T="03">3.7 GHz Report and Order.</E> To the extent a claimant or one or more responsible 3.7 GHz Service licensees wish to dispute the clearinghouse's determination with respect to a submitted claim, they must file a notice of objection as required by section 27.1421(a) of the Commission's rules. The clearinghouse may in the first instance mediate any disputes or refer the disputant parties to alternative dispute resolution fora. Subsequent appeals to the Bureau may be submitted pursuant to the procedures set forth in the <E T="03">RPC Appeals Procedures Public Notice.</E> Following a Bureau decision in either a single-party or multi-party dispute, any party to a specific matter wishing to appeal that decision may do so by filing with the Commission, within ten (10) days of the effective date of the Bureau decision, a petition for <E T="03">de novo</E> review, whereupon the Commission will set the matter for an evidentiary hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. 5. <E T="03">Anuvu's RPC Claims.</E> Anuvu is an earth station operator with multiple antennas registered with the Commission at its Holmdel, NJ (Holmdel) site, which appear on the incumbent earth station list for purposes of the C-band transition. Anuvu filed two claims with the RPC on January 30, 2024 and June 21, 2024, seeking $1,287,214.13 as actual cost reimbursement for system modifications performed at Holmdel as well as its separate Raisting, Germany (Raisting) earth station site. Specifically, Anuvu requested $326,519.78 for C-band related equipment and installation work at Holmdel, and $960,694.35 for C-band related equipment and installation work at Raisting. After review of Anuvu's claims and supplemental information provided by the claimant, the RPC Decisional Memorandum was issued on December 4, 2024, fully approving Anuvu's claims as they relate to the Holmdel site. The RPC denied in full Anuvu's claims as they relate to the Raisting site given its location outside the United States. Anuvu filed a notice of objection with the RPC for the denied portion of its claims on December 20, 2024, seeking payment of the full amount. On January 13, 2025, Anuvu received payment for the undisputed amount of $326,519.78. 6. <E T="03">Anuvu's Appeal to the Bureau.</E> Anuvu filed a single-party appeal on February 10, 2025, asking the Bureau to order the RPC to reimburse the disallowed amount of $960,694.35. The RPC filed its response on February 24, 2025. Anuvu filed its reply on March 3, 2025. The instant matter arises from the Bureau's denial of Anuvu's appeal of the RPC's decision. 7. The <E T="03">RPC Appeals Procedures Public Notice</E> allows any party to a specific single-party or multi-party dispute to appeal a Bureau decision on disputed issues relating to an RPC reimbursement decision by petitioning for an evidentiary hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. The petition for a hearing must be filed within ten (10) days of the effective date of the Bureau order. 8. Anuvu filed its appeal of the Bureau's decision within ten (10) days of the effective date thereof, and we thus find that the Petition satisfies the requirements of the <E T="03">RPC Appeals Procedures Public Notice.</E> Therefore, the Petition is hereby granted, and the disputed issues are designated for hearing. 9. <E T="03">Written Hearings Report and Order.</E> The Commiss ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━