Public Notice

By this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission announces the status of the 505 short-form applications received for Auction 904. Bidding in Auction 904 will begin on Thursday, Oct 29, 2020, and will award up to $16 billion over 10 years to service providers that commit to offer voice and broadband services to fixed locations in unserved high-cost census blocks. This Public Notice also provides important information regarding modification and resubmission of short-form applications and reminds applicants of certain procedures the FCC adopted for this auction.

RED Technologies (RED) is now the white space database administrator for the database previously administered by Nominet UK (Nominet). This change was precipitated by a transfer of ownership and control of the white space database from Nominet to RED. This transfer of control will not affect the way existing or future white space equipment connects to the white space database. In addition, there will be no change to the public’s interaction with the database for querying the database or registering protected entity locations.

The Federal Communications Commission begins its latest annual statutorily-mandated assessment of its progress in closing the digital divide. In the 2020 Broadband Deployment Report, the FCC concluded that for the third consecutive year such advanced telecommunications capabilities are being timely deployed. While the 2020 Report acknowledged there is still work to be done to fully close the digital divide, more Americans than ever before now have access to the benefits of broadband as the FCC’s policies have created a regulatory environment to stimulate broadband investment and deployment.

Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 establishes the duty of telecommunications carriers to protect the confidentiality of its customers’ proprietary information. This Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) includes personally identifiable information derived from a customer’s relationship with a provider of telecommunications services. These regulations impose safeguards to protect customers’ CPNI against unauthorized access and disclosure.

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission finds good cause to extend its prior waivers of certain Lifeline program rules governing recertification, reverification, general deenrollment, subscriber usage, income documentation, and documentation requirements for subscribers residing in rural areas on Tribal lands through November 30, 2020. The FCC will continue to monitor the situation to determine whether any additional extension of these waivers is appropriate.

The transaction resulting in the acquisition by ByteDance of Musical.​ly, to the extent that Musical.​ly or any of its assets is used in furtherance or support of, or relating to, Musical.​ly’s activities in interstate commerce in the United States (“Musical.​ly in the United States”), is hereby prohibited, and ownership by ByteDance of any interest in Musical.​ly in the United States, whether effected directly or indirectly through ByteDance, or through ByteDance’s subsidiaries, affiliates, or Chinese shareholders, is also prohibited. In order to effectuate this order, not later than 90 da

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced the new members of the FCC’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee and named Paul J. TenHaken, Mayor of Sioux Falls (SD) Chair of the IAC and Peter J. Larkin, Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, as Vice-Chair.

The Univeral Service Administrative Company (USAC) is seeking to gather information from US-based companies that have an established record of accomplishment of cost-effectively automating manual, repetitive, and rule-based processes using Robotic Process Automations (RPAs). This Request for Information (RFI) describes the information being requested and provides instructions on how to respond. Proposals are due no later than Aug 28, 2020 at 2:00 PM ET.

In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL) to BellSouth Telecommunications (d/b/a AT&T Southeast) for apparently failing to charge two Florida school districts the lowest corresponding price for telecommunications services it provided under the E-Rate program.

President Donald Trump issued a pair of executive orders that will impose new limits on Chinese social-media apps TikTok and WeChat, effectively setting a 45-day deadline for an American company to purchase TikTok’s US operations. The orders bar people in the US or subject to US jurisdiction from transactions with the China-based owners of the apps, effective 45 days from Aug 6. That raises the possibility that US citizens would be prevented from downloading the apps in the Apple or Google app stores.