On Friday, July 16, 2021, the Enforcement Bureau (the “Bureau”) released a Citation and Order (DA 21-808) notifying Taneynet Broadband, Inc. d/b/a Wayvz Tech (“Taneynet”) that it failed to file FCC Forms 477 on several occasions and late filed FCC Form 477 on another occasion. Specifically, Taneynet filed its Form 477 due March 1, 2018, almost a month late, and failed to file three FCC Forms 477 due on September 3, 2019, March 2, 2020, and March 15, 2021. The Citation and Order places Taneynet on notice that it must take immediate steps to comply with the Form 477 Filing Rules and that failure to comply may result in monetary sanctions, including forfeitures on both the conduct that led to the current Citation and the conduct following it. Taneynet may respond to the Citation within thirty days.
This Citation follows several Notices of Apparent Liability released earlier this year directed at providers that failed to file timely Forms 477, with fines ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. In the Citation, the Bureau emphasizes the important role that the Form 477 plays, as it is “a critical fact-gathering instrument that informs the Commission’s efforts to advance broadband availability. . . .[t]imely data is essential to the mission of fostering the availability of broadband services across the United States, and failing to provide it materially impairs the Commission’s ability to assess broadband deployment and to measure the subscribership upon which Commission policy is based.”
As a reminder, the FCC’s rules require all facilities-based providers of broadband service to file FCC Form 477 data twice a year (March and September). The next filing deadline is September 1, 2021, which will cover data as of June 30, 2021. Please note that the FCC recently launched a modernized Form 477 filing interface, which will require an individual CORES username and password to log on.
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