[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 14, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6562-6563]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-03000]


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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

[OMB 3060-1251]


Information Collection Approved by the Office of Management and 
Budget

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Federal Communications Commission (Commission) has 
received Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval, on an 
emergency basis, for a new, one-time information collection pursuant to 
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. An agency may not conduct or 
sponsor a collection of information unless it displays a currently 
valid OMB control number, and no person is required to respond to a 
collection of information unless it displays a currently valid control 
number. Comments concerning the accuracy of the burden estimates and 
any suggestions for reducing the burden should be directed to the 
person listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Contact Cathy Williams, 
[email protected], (202) 418-2918.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The total annual reporting burdens and costs 
for the respondents are as follows:
    OMB Control Number: 3060-1251.
    OMB Approval Date: February 7, 2018.
    OMB Expiration Date: February 28, 2021.
    Title: Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process.
    Form Number: N/A.
    Respondents: Business or other for-profit entities, not-for-profit 
institutions, and state, local or tribal governments.
    Number of Respondents and Responses: 500 respondents; 500 
responses.
    Estimated Time per Response: 204 hours for challengers; 71 for 
challenged parties.
    Frequency of Response: One-time reporting requirement.
    Total Annual Burden: 78,725 hours.
    Total Annual Cost: None.
    Obligation to Respond: Required to obtain or retain benefits. 
Statutory authority for the currently approved information collection 
is contained in sections 154, 254, and 303(r) of the Communications 
Act, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 4, 254, 303(r).
    Nature and Extent of Confidentiality: To the extent the information 
submitted pursuant to this information collection is determined to be 
confidential, it will be protected by the Commission. If a respondent 
seeks to have information collected pursuant to this information 
collection withheld from public inspection, the respondent may request 
confidential treatment pursuant to section .459 of the Commission's 
rules for such information. See 47 CFR 0.459.
    Privacy Act Impact Assessment: No impact(s).
    Needs and Uses: In 2011, the Commission established the Mobility 
Fund, which consists of two phases. Mobility Fund Phase I provided one-
time universal service support payments to immediately accelerate 
deployment of mobile broadband services. MF-II will use a reverse 
auction to provide ongoing universal service support payments to 
continue to advance deployment of such services. In its February 2017 
Mobility Fund II Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking (MF-II Report and Order and/or FNPRM) (FCC 17-11), the 
Commission adopted the rules and framework for moving forward 
expeditiously with the MF-II auction and stated that, prior to the 
auction, it would establish a map of areas presumptively eligible for 
MF-II support based on the most recently available FCC Form 477 mobile 
wireless coverage data, and provide a limited timeframe for parties to 
challenge those initial determinations during the pre-auction process. 
The Commission sought comment in the accompanying Mobility Fund II 
FNPRM on how to best design a robust, targeted MF-II challenge process 
that efficiently resolves disputes about the areas eligible for MF-II 
support.
    In its August 2017 Order on Reconsideration and Second Report and 
Order (Challenge Process Order) (FCC 17-102), the Commission (1) 
reconsidered its earlier decision to use FCC Form 477 data to compile 
the map of areas presumptively eligible for MF-II support and decided 
it would instead conduct a new, one-time data collection with specified 
data parameters tailored to MF-II to determine the areas in which there 
is deployment of qualified LTE that will be used (together with high-
cost disbursement data available from the Universal Service 
Administrative Company (USAC)) for this purpose, and (2) adopted a 
streamlined challenge process that will efficiently resolve disputes 
about areas deemed presumptively ineligible for MF-II support. The map 
of areas presumptively eligible for MF-II support will serve as the 
starting point for the challenge process pursuant to which an 
interested party (challenger) may initiate a challenge with respect to 
one or more areas initially deemed ineligible for MF-II support (i.e., 
areas not listed on the Commission's map of areas presumptively 
eligible for MF-II support) and challenged parties can respond to 
challenges.
    A challenger seeking to initiate a challenge of one or more areas 
initially deemed ineligible in the Commission's map of areas 
presumptively eligible for MF-II support may do via the online 
challenge portal developed by USAC for this purpose (the USAC portal). 
For each state, a challenger must (1) identify the area(s) it seeks to 
challenge, (2) submit detailed proof of a lack of unsubsidized, 
qualified 4G LTE coverage in each challenged area in the form of actual 
outdoor speed test data collected using the standardized parameters 
specified by the Commission in the Challenge Process Order and any 
other parameters the Commission or the

[[Page 6563]]

Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Wireline Competition Bureau (the 
Bureaus) may implement, and (3) certify its challenge. The USAC system 
will validate a challenger's evidence using an automated challenge 
validation process. Once all valid challenges have been identified, a 
challenged party that chooses to respond to any valid challenge(s) may 
submit additional data via the online USAC portal during the 
established response window. A challenged party may submit technical 
information that is probative regarding the validity of a challenger's 
speed tests, including speed test data and other device-specific data 
collected from transmitter monitoring software or, alternatively, may 
submit its own speed test data that conforms to the same standards and 
requirements specified by the Commission and the Bureaus for 
challengers.
    In conjunction with the qualified 4G LTE data separately collected 
pursuant to OMB 3060-1242 that will be used to create the map of areas 
presumptively eligible for MF-II support, the information collected 
under this MF-II challenge process collection will enable the 
Commission to efficiently resolve disputes concerning the eligibility 
or ineligibility of an area initially deemed ineligible for MF-II 
support and establish the final map of areas eligible for such support, 
thereby furthering the Commission's goal of targeting MF-II support to 
areas that lack adequate mobile voice and broadband coverage absent 
subsidies through a transparent process.
    The Commission received approval from OMB for the information 
collection requirements contained in OMB 3060-1251 on February 7, 2018.

Federal Communications Commission.
Marlene H. Dortch,
Secretary, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2018-03000 Filed 2-13-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6712-01-P