When Opportunity Knocks (FCC Aug Agenda)

This April, I joined President Donald Trump at a White House event, where I announced my plans to create the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a modernized approach for connecting the hardest-to-serve corners of our country. Today, I’m circulating a proposal to formally establish this program. If adopted, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund will mark the Federal Communications Commission’s single biggest step yet to close the rural digital divide and will connect millions more rural homes and small businesses to high-speed broadband networks. It will take a reverse auction approach in providing $20.4 billion over the next decade to support high-speed broadband networks in rural America. I’m also proposing the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, an all-new approach to mapping that will collect granular broadband availability maps from service providers using shapefiles. I’m also proposing that we verify those maps through crowdsourcing — feedback directly from the public. The FCC will also be voting on a package of much-needed changes to the Rural Health Care program. 

Other items on the agenda:

• New rules banning malicious caller ID spoofing of text messages and international phone calls.
• A draft order that would make it easier and cheaper to license small satellites.
• Rules to make it easier to reach 911 from hotels, office buildings, and other places that use so-called multi-line telephone systems.
• A vote to adopt procedures for the auction of more than 17,000 toll-free numbers using the 833 prefix.
• An update to technical rules for Low-Power FM (LPFM) stations. 
• A vote on how local franchising authorities may regulate cable operators.