Federal & State Regulatory

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While no one is likely to bemoan the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s or Commission’s) May 30, 2023, Memorandum Opinion and Order (MO&O) to vacate the 2015 Forfeiture Policy Statement that had adopted a methodology of treble damages for violations of rules requiring payments to the Federal Universal Service Fund (USF), other funds applicable to common carriers, annual FCC regulatory fees, some semblance of certainty of maximum penalties may have been lost.  The Commission going forward will apply its discretion to determine forfeitures based on a review of statutory and rule-based factors, the Commission’s 1997 Forfeiture Guidelines, and “the individualized circumstances of each future adjudication.”  In effect, this is what the FCC has been doing since it, according to the MO&O, has not actually applied the “treble damages” limit in the past eight years in any adjudication.…

Continue Reading FCC Abandons 2015 Forfeiture Policy Statement in Favor of Case-by-Case Approach

On today’s episode of Full Spectrum, the Kelley Drye Communications team will be discussing several of the matters raised at the FCC’s May 18, 2023 Open Meeting. First, Partner Chip Yorkgitis discusses the Commission’s Report and Order expanding unlicensed uses in the 60 GHz band (57-71 GHz).  Chip also summarizes the Commission’s Report and Order…

On this episode of Full Spectrum, we continue our coverage of the Federal Communications Commission’s April Open Meeting. Specifically, Partner Chip Yorkgitis will provide an overview of the FCC’s adoption of a Policy Statement addressing spectrum management principles that will guide the Commission in future spectrum proceedings. Chip will also summarize a Report and Order…

On April 25, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission “(FCC” or Commission”) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that foreshadows a potentially radical revision to the regulatory framework governing the provision of international telecommunications services.  Such services are regulated under Section 214 of the Communications Act of 1934 (“Section 214”), and the FCC’s rulemaking is considering changes to almost every aspect of the authorization lifecycle.  If the proposed rules are largely adopted, following public comment and follow-on lobbying in the coming months, the result will be a substantially increased compliance burden for international telecommunications carriers which may complicate their investment and transactional strategies.  Right now, this is a situation of a few “knowns” and a lot of open questions.  (Note that the NPRM generally does not propose rule changes with regard to domestic (i.e., interstate) Section 214 authority obligations.)

Accompanying the NPRM was an Order that mandates a one-time data request for ownership information to all holders of international Section 214 authority.  See our FAQs document describing the Order.  The response deadline is not yet known as the Office of Management and Budget must first complete a review of the Order’s information collection obligations.  The response deadline will be at least thirty days after the OMB review is completed as announced in the Federal Register.…

Continue Reading FCC Considering Major Changes to Section 214 Application and Authorization Rules

On this episode of Full Spectrum, Senior Associate Winafred Brantl discusses the Commission’s proposed significant changes to the International Section 214 regime. Responding to growing concerns regarding undisclosed foreign ownership of international Section 214 carriers, the FCC will conduct a one-time data collection from all international Section 214 authorization holders and has proposed a requirement…

On March 24, 2023, in Consumers’ Research v. FCC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a Decision (No. 22-60008) upholding the constitutionality of Congress’s delegation of administration of the Universal Service Fund (USF) to the FCC and the FCC’s subsequent reliance on Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) for support USF…

On today’s episode of Full Spectrum, Hank Kelly will be discussing the FCC’s adopted order to block spam texts and another order intended to improve caller ID authentication. Second, special counsel Mike Dover will cover the FCC’s issuance of a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which proposes to expand audio description requirements.

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In November 2022, the FCC published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) seeking community partners to develop outreach programs to promote awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) among eligible households in historically underserved and unserved communities as part of the ACP Outreach Grant Program.  On Friday, March 10, 2023, the FCC…

This week on the Full Spectrum podcast, Communications partner Chip Yorkgitis discusses the FCC’s recent Notice of Proposed Ruling on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (0:51:-15:16), and Privacy partner Aaron Burstein discusses the recent NPRM on data security (15:17-26:49). (At the time of recording, the UAS NPRM had not yet been published in the Federal Register establishing…

On April 27, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission’s February 2022 Report and Order and Declaratory Ruling adopting rules proscribing or conditioning certain practices by common carriers and multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”) as they serve multiple tenant environments (“MTEs”) takes partial effect. The Report and Order and Declaratory Ruling complement earlier actions by the Commission taken more than fifteen years ago prohibiting telecommunications carriers from entering into or enforcing exclusivity contracts with MTE owners in both commercial and residential MTEs prohibiting certain MVPDs from entering into or enforcing exclusivity contracts with residential MTE owners. Generally, the new rules adopted this year prohibit providers from entering into certain types of revenue sharing agreements with MTE owners, and require affected providers to disclose the existence of exclusive marketing arrangements they have with MTE owners in simple, easy-to-understand language. With the March 28, 2022, publication of the Report and Order in the Federal Register, it generally goes into effect on April 27, but there are exceptions which delay the effectiveness of some of the key provisions which providers should be aware of, pushing out compliance of parts of the new rules to September 26, 2022, and possibly even later.

A few points regarding the scope of the new rules may be helpful. The term MTE includes both commercial and residential premises, such as apartment buildings, condominium buildings, shopping malls, or cooperatives occupied by multiple tenants, but, in the case of the proscriptions described here, MVPDs are affected only in residential MTEs whereas common carriers are affected in all MTEs.  MVPDs include cable operators, satellite cable programming vendors in which a cable operator has an attributable interest, or satellite broadcast programming vendors. Broadband-only providers that do not meet the definition of common carrier or MVPD are not subject to the new rules.…

Continue Reading Sorting Out the Multi-Step Phase-In of the FCC’s February 2022 Multi-Tenant Environment Order