Deadlines Set for FCC Transparency Rule Comments

The Federal Communications Commission has set comment deadlines on its request for input on whether it should maintain a temporary exemption from enhanced transparency requirements under its new Title II-based network neutrality rules. Comments will be due Aug 5 and reply comments Sept 4. The American Cable Association had urged the FCC not to boost the transparency requirements and, if it did, to make it a permanent exemption.

The FCC's "enhanced" transparency requirements include data on packet loss, geographic area performance, average performance over time, prices, fees, data cap allowances, network practices including application agnostic degradation of service, and more. The exemption means smaller operators don't have to report on the source of congestion, packet corruption, and jitter, and are not required to make their disclosures in real time. The FCC wants info about whether the waiver, which applies to systems with 100,000 or fewer broadband subscribers, should be made permanent or whether it should have been granted at all, as well as whether 100,000 was the right cut-off. In the FCC's open Internet order, the FCC gave the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau until Dec 15, 2015 to adopt an order on whether to maintain the exemption, and at what level of subscriber.