The Annual Performance Report of the FCC for fiscal year 2015

This report summarizes the Federal Communications Commission’s progress in fulfilling its strategic goals and meeting its performance commitments as expressed in the Commission’s FY 2015 Annual Performance Plan. Unleashing spectrum for broadband remains one of the Commission’s most effective strategies for spurring economic growth and job creation. At the top of our spectrum agenda is the unprecedented Incentive Auction, the most complex in Commission history, and we have been advancing a number of actions to put us on track for a successful auction. And the AWS-3 auction raised over $40 billion in net revenues. The FCC adopted the Open Internet Order, which will protect and promote the Internet as a platform for innovation, expression and economic growth. The FCC granted – with conditions – approval of the acquisition of DIRECTV by AT&T. The FCC approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to reform the FCC’s Lifeline program, exploring new ways to expand access to broadband while strengthening protections against waste, fraud, and abuse. Building on reforms adopted in 2012, which helped annual Lifeline spending drop nearly 23% from almost $2.2 billion to $1.7 billion, the Lifeline reform NPRM proposes to streamline and tighten the process of verifying consumer eligibility by taking it out of the hands of providers. The FCC improved the E-rate program's cost-effectiveness and set specific, ambitious goals for the broadband capacity delivered to schools and libraries – a short term target of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, and a longer term target of 1 Gbps per 1,000 students. The FCC also re-purposed funding for Wi-Fi and robust broadband connections capable of supporting cutting-edge, one-to-one digital learning