Public Notice

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) released a ruling and staff report on "Equity and Transparency of Fees, Taxes and Surcharges Assessed on Customers of Telecommunications Services in California." The report found that the total number of communications subscribers in the state has increased substantially over the past decade. Yet, over the same period, the surcharges have yielded diminishing revenues.

In response to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau has waived certain Lifeline program rules in seven previous Orders to provide necessary relief for low-income households. Although vaccination efforts have been underway for several months and overall cases have decreased, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt by many Americans.

The Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will share information about and coordinate the distribution of federal broadband deployment funds.

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) projects that, $379.97 million in unused funds is available for use in future Rural Health Care (RHC) Program funding years beginning in 2021. The Federal Communications Commission directs USAC to carry these unused funds over to satisfy funding year 2021 RHC Program demand. The overall RHC Program funding cap for 2021 is $612,016,418.

A second set of projects selected for the Connected Care Pilot Program were announced by the Federal Communications Commission on June 17.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the Final Rule for the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program, which will direct $268 million for expanding broadband to eligible historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges or Universities (TCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs).

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Managing Director announced that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the third quarter of 2021 will be 0.318 or 31.8 percent.

The Federal Communications Commission will re-charter the Task Force for Reviewing Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture in the United States, a federal advisory committee, which provides advice and recommendations to the FCC on accelerating the deployment of broadband Internet access service on unserved agriculture land to promote precision agriculture.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau authorized $84,456,870 in Connect USVI Fund Stage 2 support for the winning proposals from Broadband VI to provide voice and broadband services for the 10-year period with speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second.

In March 2021, the Federal Communications Commission announced a planned auction of new flexible-use licenses in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band (Auction 110). Auction 110 will offer 4,060 new licenses throughout the contiguous US, subject to cooperative sharing requirements in certain, defined areas where and when federal incumbents require continued access to the band. The FCC, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and the Department of Defense (DoD) are working collaboratively towards these goals.