Public Notice

The Federal Communications Commission has long recognized that arbitrage opportunities in the intercarrier compensation (ICC) system harm consumers, undermine broadband deployment, and distort competition. Despite the FCC’s adoption of a national, default bill-and-keep framework as the ultimate end state for the exchange of all telecommunications traffic and its efforts to reduce wasteful arbitrage, a variety of arbitrage schemes continue to evolve and once again flourish.

In a notice of inquiry, we are asking all interested stakeholders – businesses, civil society groups, the technical community, academics, and the general public – to provide us with comments and recommendations. The input we receive will inform NTIA's international Internet policy priorities going forward. Four broad topic areas and some key questions we think are especially important:

As required by the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, with this Public Notice, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, in coordination with the Wireline Competition Bureau, establishes a portal for Internet service provider (ISP) transparency disclosures. The Order becomes effective on June 11, 2018, and the revised transparency rule requires ISPs to publicly disclose information about their service in one of two ways – by providing the disclosure on a publicly available, easily accessible website or by submitting it to the Federal Communications Commission for posting. On May 29, 2018

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed members to serve on the Harmonization working group of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). This working group is being formed following the vote of the BDAC on April 25, 2018, to approve both the Model Code for Municipalities and Model Code for States, subject to the understanding that further work would be done to address inconsistencies and otherwise harmonize the two codes.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has selected Paul D’Ari to serve as Designated Federal Officer (DFO) of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), effective May 14, 2018. D’Ari, who currently serves as Deputy DFO, will replace Brian Hurley, who is leaving the agency. Deborah Salons and Jiaming Shang will serve as the new Deputy DFOs.

The Federal Communications Commission announces that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved, for a period of three years, the information collection associated with the Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order (Order)’s transparency rule.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration issues this Notice on behalf of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) to initiate the annual process to seek expressions of interest from individuals who would like to serve on the FirstNet Board. One of the 12 appointments of nonpermanent members to the FirstNet Board, expiring August 2019, is currently vacant. Additionally, four of the 12 appointments of nonpermanent members to the FirstNet Board expire in August 2018, creating a total of five available appointments to the FirstNet Board.

The Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau announced the issuance of a further allocation of the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund in the amount of $742 million to reimburse eligible full power and Class A broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) (together, Eligible Entities) for expenses related to the construction of station facilities on reassigned television channels. With this further allocation, Eligible Entities have access to a total of $1.742 billion.

On January 13, 2018 at 8:07 am, the State of Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sought to conduct an internal exercise of their ballistic missile defense drill using the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). The exercise went awry, resulting in HI-EMA sending the following message throughout Hawaii: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. This false emergency alert resulted in 38 minutes of confusion, fear and uncertainty for the residents of Hawaii.

This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed David Young to serve on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) as a representative of the National League of Cities. Young is Fiber Infrastructure and Right of Way Manager for the City of Lincoln (NE).