Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission announces that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved, for a period of three years, the information collection requirements contained in the regulations in the .

The information collection requirements were approved on June 9, 2014 by OMB.

The Federal Communications Commission 's Accessibility and Innovation Initiative will host a public event, "Accessing Social Media," on July 17, 2014, at FCC Headquarters, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington (DC).

The purpose of the event is to facilitate a collaborative, cross-sector exchange of information about making social media tools and content accessible to people with disabilities, including information about authoring tools, client apps and best practices. Among speakers in attendance will include representatives of the US Department of Labor, General Services Administration, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposal to change E-Rate, a program designed to help schools and libraries connect to the Internet. That proposal promises over $5 billion for Wi-Fi but doesn’t identify where the money will come from to fund this new program.

After crunching the numbers provided by FCC staff, the Office of Commissioner Ajit Pai has developed financial projections that validate the concerns of congressional leaders of both parties that the proposal’s promises would come out of funding available today for Internet connectivity. Here are the results:

• Over the next five years, the FCC’s Wi-Fi proposal would cut over $2.7 billion ($2,716,652,262) in funding available for Internet connectivity for schools and libraries.
• In Year 3, the proposal would cut over $645 million ($645,658,643) or 27% of funds available for Internet connectivity.
• In Year 4, the proposal would cut over $985 million ($985,937,579) or 39% of funds available for Internet connectivity.
• In Year 5, the proposal would cut over $1.085 billion ($1,085,056,039) or 41% of funds available for Internet connectivity.
• Because of these spending cuts, many rural schools would lose all of their funding for Internet connectivity in Years 3 through 5.

The FCC’s Washington-knows-best approach would deprive local school districts of the flexibility to meet local needs. By slashing funds available for Internet connectivity, the program will likely provide many American students with “Wi-Fi to nowhere.”

In this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission considers 79 groups of mutually exclusive (MX) applications filed in the recent low power FM (LPFM) window and uses a point system to tentatively select applications for grant.

The tentative selectees, i.e., the single applicant with the highest point total or the applicants tied for the highest point total from each MX group, are identified.

The FCC has initiated a 30-day period for filing petitions to deny against the applicants tentatively selected and a 90-day period for the filing of voluntary time-share proposals (point-aggregation requests) and major change amendments.

The LPFM point system awards a maximum of six merit points, based on six criteria, with one point awarded under each criterion: (1) established community presence of at least two years; (2) commitment to originate local programming; (3) commitment to maintain a main studio; (4) commitment to originate local programming and to maintain a main studio; (5) diversity of ownership; and (6) tribal applicants serving tribal lands.

Once the petition to deny period has run, FCC staff are directed to conduct a final study of each tentatively selected application in accordance with the FCC Media Bureau’s routine processing procedures. In the case of tied applications, the final study will not be conducted until the tie has been eliminated through amendment, settlement and/or time-share procedures.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau announced that Katherine Winfree has joined the Bureau as Chief of Staff. Winfree previously served as the Chief Deputy Attorney General for the State of Maryland -- the second highest law enforcement officer in the state.

Winfree is a nationally recognized leader in the area of prosecution and law enforcement. During her time as Chief Deputy Attorney General, Winfree supervised the 32 divisions of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. In 2013, she successfully represented the state before the US Supreme Court in Maryland v. King, in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Maryland DNA Collection Act.

Before joining the Maryland Attorney General’s office, Winfree served for nearly two decades as a federal and state prosecutor, trying high-profile cases including federal public-corruption cases and the prosecution of the Beltway snipers, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.

Among other roles with the US Department of Justice, she has worked in the Appellate Section of the Criminal Division and has served as Chief of the Economic Crime and Public Corruption Sections in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) has released a Public Notice seeking comment on whether to terminate almost 650 dormant proceedings (i.e., dockets that have no planned action and no further comments expected).

I applaud FCC Chairman Wheeler for initiating this item as well as the CBG staff and the individual Bureaus and Offices that worked on this document. The FCC has over 2,800 open proceedings pending. I believe that closing outdated FCC proceedings makes a lot of sense. Doing so could help the agency become more organized and focused on decisions that need to be made.

It could also make it easier for both Congress and the public to track what the agency is working on or still considering. And it could help prevent the FCC from using antiquated information as a basis for regulating.

Any good math teacher would give the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate proposal an “F” because the numbers just don’t add up.

It promises over $5 billion for Wi-Fi but doesn’t identify where the money will come from to fund this new program. As it stands, the proposal will blow a $2.7 billion hole in E-Rate’s budget -- one that the FCC has promised outside parties it’ll fill with a post-election increase in Americans’ phone bills. The proposal also doesn’t pass the test in other respects.

Rather than giving small, rural schools and libraries a fair shake, it continues to direct the bulk of E-Rate funds to large, urban school districts.

Instead of fundamentally reforming the E-Rate bureaucracy, the plan doubles down on complexity. Schools and libraries will still have to file reams of paperwork, operate on Washington’s timeline, and hire consultants -- that is, if they participate in the program at all.

Rather than giving local school boards, principals, teachers, and librarians the flexibility to decide what services and technologies best meet their communities’ particular needs, the plan takes a Washington-knows-best mindset.

The updated agenda for the Federal Communications Commission’s July 9 workshop to analyze the impact of reforms and gather information to inform additional reforms of Inmate Calling Services (ICS) will include four panel discussions, as follows:

1. Impact of Reform and Potential Need for Additional Reform -- This panel will address the impact of reforms since the 2013 ICS Report and Order and FNPRM, the benefits to consumers, and the potential need for additional FCC and/or state reforms.
2. Ancillary Charges -- This panel will discuss ancillary charges, the types, rates, whether new charges have occurred since the 2013 Order, and potential reforms to limit these charges.
3. Understanding the Provision of ICS in Different Facilities – This panel will focus on understanding the primary cost drivers of providing ICS in different types of correctional facilities.
4. New Technologies -- This panel will consider new and emerging forms of communications in correctional settings beyond the traditional wireline telephone call.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced the members of an inter-bureau steering committee and the working team leaders established to coordinate the agency’s review of merger applications from Comcast-Time Warner Cable-Charter and AT&T-DirecTV. Jonathan Sallet, General Counsel, will chair the steering committee that will oversee both sets of transactions.

Bureau chiefs on the steering committee include Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, International Bureau Chief Mindel de la Torre, Wireline Competition Bureau Chief Julie Veach, and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Roger Sherman.

Hillary Burchuk will lead the working team responsible for the review of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable-Charter transaction. Bill Dever from the Wireline Competition bureau will be her deputy.

The Comcast-Time Warner Cable-Charter working team will report to the steering committee. Jamillia Ferris will join the Office of General Counsel to lead the working team for the review of the proposed AT&T-DirecTV transaction.

Elizabeth Andrion from the Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis will serve as her deputy.

William Rogerson will serve as senior economist overseeing the review of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable-Charter and has been selected to serve as senior economist overseeing the review of the proposed AT&T-DirecTV transactions.

Shane Greenstein will serve as senior economic consultant, providing guidance on the proposed Comcast-TWC-Charter and AT&T-DirecTV transactions.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an open meeting on July 11, 2014. The FCC will consider:

• A Report and Order to modernize the E-Rate program and expand support for Wi-Fi connectivity for schools and libraries. The R&O seeks to close the Wi-Fi gap, make E-Rate dollars go farther, and deliver faster, simpler and more efficient applications and other processes;
• A Report and Order establishing a budget and a methodology for selecting winning applications for the Connect America rural broadband experiments adopted by the Commission in the January Tech Transitions Order; and
• A Second Order on Reconsideration and a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that revisits the Commission’s determinations regarding the captioning of video clips when delivered using Internet protocol, ensuring that individuals with hearing disabilities are able to enjoy the full benefits of broadband technology.

The Commission is waiving the sunshine period prohibition until 11:59 pm on July 7, 2014, permitting presentations with respect to the aforementioned items until that time.