The complexity and importance of the Digital Opportunity Data Collection as required by the US Congress and as implemented by the FCC is consequential. Normally a white paper, such as this, would detail the information necessary for an understanding of the topic being addressed, and end with a summary, which this paper does; However, due to the consequential nature of the DATA Act passed by Congress, and recognizing the importance of time to a small business owner, this paper will lead off with the final summary.
The FCC has heightened the bi-annual data collection requirements for all broadband providers (BDC Data and the FCC Form 477), requires a PE certification for the validity of the submitted data and the data collection methods used, and has an “Enforcement Bureau,” to ensure compliance. The penalties for submitting bad data (willfully or recklessly) or not submitting data at all are significant (up to $15,000 per occurrence).
The Enforcement Bureau is using easily accessed public crowdsourcing techniques to review data and to record real-time operations data and consumer complaints. Resubmissions of corrected data are required within 30 days of an enforcement action and the statute-of-limitations is one year from original submission date. Resubmission of corrected data must be accompanied with all the signatures and verification assurances as the original submission.
Lastly, The Commission believes that any additional burdens imposed by their revised reporting approach for providers are outweighed by the significant benefit to be gained from more precise broadband deployment data.
The United States Congress has allocated money to be spent within the United States to improve internet services for all Americans, independent of where they live. To understand the scope of the effort involved, the FCC has been directed, and very recently funded, to create a comprehensive data fabric showing where fixed and mobile broadband service is currently available.
The FCC has been collecting data on broadband services, local telephone, and mobile telephony services since 2000. The term broadband has also changed over this period to where it is now defined as 100 megabit per second (Mbps) down and 20Mbps up. This data was collected on the FCC Form 477 and was limited to subscribership information. In 2013, the FCC revised the FCC Form 477 to include deployment data. This included providing lists of census blocks where the companies services were provided and the maximum speed available in those census blocks. Finally, this data was used to determine serviced or unserviced census blocks to determine elegibility to participate in various grant programs, like CAF, CAF II, and RDOF, that were created to improve broadband internet services. Additional requirements for VOIP reporting linked to the FCC 499 filing have also been included. The FCC 499 is used to determine contributions to the USF fund.
The USF were government money, collected from every telephone user as part of their phone bill. These funds were dispersed to financially incentivize companies to deploy telephony and internet services to rural America.
The data was sorted by speed tier, residential and non-residential, and by the technology used to provide service.
Very recently, the Congress tasked the FCC with increasing the granularity of the data to include what services are available to every address in the United States. The data requirements have increased for service infrastructure, as well. The process has now been named, “Digital Opportunity Data Collection Order.”
The Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) – the administrator of the USF – is assigned to create and implement the data collection and crowdsourcing platforms. As you can see, this new order has two distinct parts, Data Collection and Crowdsourcing.
The “Data Collection Order and Further Notice,” directs the service providers to submit data in accordance with the standards established by the USAC and reviewed by the public and a host of two and three letter federal agencies (OEA, WCB, WTB, IB). Comments to the draft Order were submitted and addressed. The final order was certified by Congress when they passed the Broadband DATA Act.
The DATA Act required the FCC to:
The FCC has completed their final order for implementation of The DATA Act. The Order is called, “Third Report and Order.” The order lays out the data collection requirements, verification of data protocols, and enforcement.
Data Collection RequirementsInstructions for the Brodband Data Collection filing have been published and can be found here.
“The Order requires collected data to be highly accurate and reliable, not for the Commission’s purposes, but for the public and Federal, State, Tribal and Local Stakeholders.” The data collection requires:
It was proposed to the FCC that they elect a $3k maximum enforcement penalty for data errors (willfully and knowingly, or recklessly). Rather, stating the importance of this effort to the public, they increased the enforcement penalty to $15,000 per event. In the words of the FCC,
“The Broadband DATA Act makes it unlawful for an entity or individual to willfully and knowingly, or recklessly, submit information or data that is materially inaccurate or incomplete with respect to the availability of broadband internet access service or the quality of service with respect to broadband internet access service.”
They go on further,
“The Commission will find a false statement submitted by a provider as part of its Digital Opportunity Data Collection obligations to be an actionable violation of section 1.17(a)(2), even absent an intent to deceive, if the statement is provided without a reasonable basis for believing that the statement is correct and not misleading.
And lastly,
”the Commission will enforce penalties against providers who “willfully and knowingly, or recklessly, submit information or data that is materially inaccurate or incomplete with respect to the availability of broadband internet access service or the quality of service with respect to broadband internet access service.”
When making forfeiture penalties, the, “Enforcement Bureau,” may consider the nature, circumstances, extent, and gravity of the violation, and with respect to the violator, the degree of culpability, and history of prior offenses, ability to pay, and such other matters as justice may require.”
This ruling will also be imposed on companies that fail to file. Under section 503 of the Act, certain wireless internet service providers are entitled to a citation before being subject to a forfeiture.
Here are some of the after-enforcement actions the Bureau can take:
The FCC requires, “…all providers to provide a certification as to the accuracy of a provider's semiannual filling from a certified professional engineer or corporate engineering officer that is employed by the provider and has direct knowledge of, or responsibility for, the generation of the provider's Digital Opportunity Data Collection filing.” And further, “…the Third Report and Order requires providers to submit a certification from a qualified engineer that the engineer has reviewed and supports the submission and attests that the statements of fact contained in the submission are true and correct and prepared in accordance with the service provider's ordinary course of network design and engineering. To meet this requirement, small entities can use an existing employee who is a certified professional engineer and are not required to hire a new in-house engineer or an engineer consultant in order to certify its data submissions which could have a significant economic impact.”
The FCC has heightened the bi-annual data collection requirements for all broadband providers (BDC Data and the FCC Form 477), requires a PE certification for the validity of the submitted data and the data collection methods used, and has an “Enforcement Bureau,” to ensure compliance. The penalties for submitting bad data (willfully or recklessly) or not submitting data at all are significant (up to $15,000 per occurrence).
The Enforcement Bureau is using easily accessed public crowdsourcing techniques to review data and to record real-time operations data and consumer complaints. Resubmissions of corrected data are required within 30 days of an enforcement action and the statute-of-limitations is one year from original submission date. Resubmission of corrected data must be accompanied with all the signatures and verification assurances as the original submission.
Lastly, The Commission believes that any additional burdens imposed by their revised reporting approach for providers are outweighed by the significant benefit to be gained from more precise broadband deployment data.