September 1, 2021 Weekly Wireless Wrap-Up

Welcome back to TLP’s Weekly Wireless Wrap-Up, your weekly update on the wireless telecommunications regulatory landscape, important wireless decisions, and more!  Notably, this week, the FCC announced a second window for the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program.  Here’s your wrap-up:

FCC:

• Last Tuesday, August 24, 2021, the FCC released a Public Notice announcing that the deadline to submit applications to fill Tribal vacancies on the Native Nations Communications Task Force was extended from August 27, 2021 to September 27, 2021. The Task Force makes recommendations to the Commission on communications issues that affect Tribal For more information, see our post here.

• Last Wednesday, August 25, 2021, the Broadband Data Task Force released an Order granting a two-week extension of the comment and reply comment deadlines for the FCC’s Public Notice on the Broadband DATA Collection technical requirements. For more information, see our post here.

• Also last Wednesday, the FCC announced that it would be opening a second 15-day filing window for the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program on September 28, 2021 for school and library purchases in the 2021-2022 school year. The FCC received requests for $5.137 billion to fund 9.1 million connected devices and 5.4 million broadband connections as a part of the first filing window, which closed August 13, 2021.  For more information, see the FCC’s news release here and the Emergency Connectivity Fund webpage here.

• On Monday, the FCC released two Public Notices extending deadlines as a result of Hurricane Ida:
  • The Auction 110 upfront payment deadline was extended to September 7, 2021. For more information see our post here.
  • The Form 477 filing deadline, which was today, was extended until a future Public Notice is released. For more information, see our post here.

 Congress:

• Earlier today, House Homeland Committee Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation held a hearing entitled “Stakeholder Perspectives on the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2021.” Witnesses included Ronald Buschar, Vice President and Government CTO, FireEye Mandiant, Heather Hogsett, Senior Vice President, Technology & Risk Strategy for BITS, Bank Policy Institute, John Miller, Senior Vice President of Policy and General Counsel, Information Technology Industrial Council, Robert Mayer, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity, USTelecom, and Kimberly Denbow, Managing Director, Security & Operations, American Gas Association.  For more information and to view the hearing, see the Homeland Committee’s webpage here.

 For more information or assistance on telecommunications matters, please contact us.