Public Notice

The Federal Communications Commission approved $237.9 million in funding over three years to expand, improve, and harden mobile broadband networks in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Specifically, in Stage 2 of the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and Connect USVI Fund, the FCC authorized $233.9 million to three carriers serving Puerto Rico and $4 million to one carrier serving the US Virgin Islands.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Managing Director (OMD) announces that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the third quarter of 2020 will be 0.265 or 26.5 percent. The Federal Communications Commission calculates the quarterly contribution factor based on the ratio of total projected quarterly costs of the universal service support mechanisms to contributors’ total projected collected end-user interstate and international telecommunications revenues, net of projected contributions.

The Federal Communications Commission authorized over $7.4 million in funding over ten years to expand rural broadband in Oklahoma and Oregon. Tribal provider Redwire will receive $4,766,845.60 to provide fixed broadband of at least 25/3 Mbps to 8,041 rural homes and businesses in Oklahoma, including in Tribal areas. Viasat will serve 3,811 rural locations in Oregon with $2,708,529.40 in FCC support. Together these investments will connect 11,852 unserved rural homes and businesses.  

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau seeks comment on a petition for declaratory ruling filed by the National Lifeline Association (NaLA). NaLA requests that the Federal Communications Commission revoke the state of Texas’s National Lifeline Accountability Database opt-out certification approval and other relief.

By this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission notifies E-Rate program participants that the FCC Form 470, the form that E-Rate program applicants use to solicit bids from service providers for E-Rate eligible services, will remain unchanged for funding year 2021 to allow schools and libraries to continue to focus their time and resources on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In so doing, we seek to avoid the potential for further confusion and burden on applicants at a time when they are continuing to transition their students, patrons, teachers, and staff to remote learnin

The Federal Communications Commission reached a $5 million settlement with voice over Internet provider (VoIP) magicJack regarding its failure to report its interstate revenues and contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The company, which sells a VoIP telephone service to consumers, agreed to the settlement, along with an extensive compliance plan. magicJack markets itself to consumers as a competitive replacement for traditional telephone service. It uses Internet service to allow consumers to make phone calls to and receive calls from traditional mobile and landline phones.

On April 23, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission proposed to adopt rules and a framework for establishing the 5G Fund for Rural America. To account for the relative costs of serving areas that vary in terrain characteristics and potential business cases, the FCC proposed to apply an adjustment factor to make the most difficult areas to serve more attractive at auction in order to encourage more bidding for these areas. The adjustment factor also would be used to transition legacy high-cost support to 5G Fund support.

The Federal Communications Commission' Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, Wireline Competition Bureau, and the Office of Economics and Analytics announce they are ready to authorize Connect America Fund Phase II auction (Auction 903) support for the Auction 903 winning bids.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed members to serve on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) Disaster Response and Recovery Working Group:

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Tuesday, June 9, 2020. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic and related agency telework and headquarters access policies, this meeting will be in a wholly electronic format and will be open to the public on the Internet via live feed from the FCC’s web page and on the FCC’s YouTube channel.