On September 6, 2024, the FCC released the Eighteenth Section 706 Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) seeking comment on the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans, pursuant to Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and proposing to maintain the standards and goals adopted in the 2024 Section 706 Report. You may recall that Section 706 requires the FCC to annually conduct an inquiry “concerning the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans (including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms)” as part of an effort to “determine whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” If the determination is negative, the Commission is required to take immediate action to accelerate deployment by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and promoting competition in the marketplace.
In the NOI, the FCC seeks comment on:
- The statutory standard for the Section 706 Inquiry, including the FCC’s universal service goals (universal deployment, adoption, affordability, availability, and equitable access to broadband for all Americans)
- Whether to continue treating fixed and mobile services as complementary services, as opposed to full substitutes.
- Its proposal to maintain the 100/20 Mbps benchmark for fixed broadband, which was adopted in the 2024 Report and use the same analytical framework used in the 2024 Report, including: (1) utilizing the data collected through the Broadband Data Collection (“BDC”) as the primary data source for current broadband availability information, (2) utilizing Form 477 data for analyzing historical trends, and (3) reporting deployment data for 100/20 Mbps and 940/500 Mbps. The FCC also seeks comment on whether 25/3 Mbps speeds continue to be relevant to the FCC’s analysis and how to treat satellite service in its evaluation of the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability.
- Whether to maintain the long-term fixed broadband speed goal of 1000/500 Mbps or to raise the goal to symmetrical speeds of 1000 Mbps, and whether there should be a timeframe for achieving this long-term goal.
- Whether to continue to utilize the multiple speed metrics approach for mobile broadband or whether it should adopt a single speed benchmark for mobile services. In addition, the FCC seeks comment on its proposal to continue to use mobile broadband deployment data collected through the BDC as the primary data source for measuring service availability of mobile broadband, and whether it should continue to supplement this data with Ookla’s on-the-ground speed data.
- Whether to include an assessment of the number of fixed and mobile broadband provider options to which consumers have access, as it did in the 2024 Report.
- What data sources should be used in evaluating the FCC’s universal service goals of adoption, affordability, availability, and equitable access. In particular, the FCC seeks comment on the impact the end of the ACP has had on broadband subscribers, whether there are quality of service metrics, such as speed and latency, it should analyze to determine availability, and the impact of the digital discrimination rules on equitable access.
- The next section 706 finding and how its analysis of the universal service goals should inform the Commission’s finding.
Comments are due on or before October 7, 2024.
Reply comments are due on or before November 6, 2024.
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