Public Notice

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) announced the conclusion of the Connect America Fund Phase II auction long-form application review. There were 195 authorized applicant state combinations, totaling $1.48 billion authorized in 10-year support, covering 708,494 locations in 45 states. Authorized bids included a range of performance tiers, with more than one-half of the winning bids at 100/20 Mbps or higher.

The Federal Communications Commission establishes a comprehensive and coordinated nationwide approach to managing the 4.9 GHz (4940-4990 MHz) band while retaining its locally controlled, public safety nature. In doing so, the FCC solidifies the band’s status as public safety spectrum, while also allowing secondary, non-public safety use as agreed to by public safety licensees through a new leasing model.

In this Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL), the Federal Communications Commission proposes a penalty of $62,000,000 against Q Link Wireless for apparently violating provisions of the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act and FCC rules and orders governing the reimbursements it claimed for providing Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program customers with internet-connected devices between December 2021 and March 2022. Because of these apparent violations, which involved overclaiming support for hundreds of thousands of computer tablets, Q Link apparently obtained at least $20,792,800 in impr

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB), in conjunction with the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA), authorized Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) support for 1,764 winning bids identified. Almost all the winning bids were made by Resound Networks. Resound Networks won bids for the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas. Hughes Networks won two bids for the state of Rhode Island.

An audit of the Oregon Broadband Office by Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D-OR) found the office will likely be prepared to receive and facilitate upcoming federal infrastructure grant awards.

The Federal Communications Commission released an Order adopting the plan to establish a Space Bureau and Office of International Affairs. The planned reorganization will better support the needs of the growing satellite industry, promote long-term technical capacity at the FCC, and help the agency navigate 21st century global communications policy. As part of this plan, the agency will be eliminating the current International Bureau and incorporating that team into the new bureau and office.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announces the grant of four long-form applications and the issuance of 12 licenses for Auction 108. On August 29, 2022, the FCC completed the auction of new flexible-use geographic overlay licenses in the (2.5 GHz) band and announced the results of that auction on September 1, 2022.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announced the grant of five 900 MHz broadband segment license applications to PDV Spectrum Holding Company in four locations in Kansas and one in Missouri.

The Federal Communications Commission launched a proceeding to strengthen rules for notifying customers and federal law enforcement of breaches of customer proprietary network information (CPNI). The FCC will look to better align its rules with recent developments in federal and state data breach laws covering other sectors. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking launches a formal proceeding to gather information on this important issue and also take comment on rule changes proposed by the FCC. The FCC seeks to better address telecommunications carriers’ breach notification requirements.

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission grants a request filed by seventeen groups and individuals for an extension of the time in which to file comments in response to the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Empowering Broadband Consumers Through Transparency docket. As determined by the date of publication in the Federal Register, comments and reply comments were originally due on January 17, 2023 and February 14, 2023, respectively. The FCC extends the comment date 30 days to February 16, 2023.