All WISPs and Broadband Providers,
Please note the change below and prepare to update your records. Sharon Gillett asked me to forward a heads up that the Wireline Competition Bureau has announced its plans to transition the FCC Form 477 broadband data to the 2010 Census tracts, starting with the December 31, 2011 data that will be due March 1. The Public Notice at <http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1122/DA-11-1 937A1.pdf> http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1122/DA-11-19 37A1.pdf explains this further. Also, we plan to send courtesy emails, next week, to get this information to the current Form 477 filers. Regards, and best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving, Ellen Burton Assistant Chief, Industry Analysis and Technology Division, Wireline Competition Bureau (202) 418-0958 PUBLIC NOTICE Federal Communications Commission 445 12th St., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 1-888-835-5322 DA 11-1937 Released: November 22, 2011 WIRELINE COMPETITION BUREAU ANNOUNCES CONVERSION TO 2010 CENSUS TRACTS FOR BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERSHIP REPORTING IN FUTURE FCC FORM 477 FILINGS WC Docket No. 07-38 The Commission requires facilities-based wired, terrestrial fixed wireless, and satellite broadband service providers to report on FCC Form 477 the number of broadband subscribers they have in each census tract they serve. The Census Bureau changed the boundaries of some census tracts as part of the 2010 Census. This public notice announces, in response to informal inquiries from broadband service providers, that broadband service providers must use the revised census tracts (i.e., the 2010 census tracts) to report broadband subscribership information in the FCC Form 477 filing that is due no later than March 1, 2012. That filing will collect information about the filers' operations as of December 31, 2011. Broadband service providers also will use the 2010 census tracts in subsequent FCC Form 477 reports pending further revisions in census tract boundaries by the Census Bureau. This is a change from earlier Form 477 filings in which entities reported broadband subscribership information using the census tract boundaries that the Census Bureau employed in the 2000 Census. FORM 477 FILING SYSTEM MODIFICATIONS To facilitate the transition to reporting based on the 2010 census tracts, the Wireline Competition Bureau staff is modifying the Commission's Form 477 electronic filing system. These modifications will be largely transparent to filers. . For submissions of information as of December 31, 2011 and subsequent data-collection dates, the system will recognize as valid only the census tract codes that were valid for the 2010 Census. . For revisions of information as of June 30, 2011 and earlier data-collection dates, the system will continue to recognize as valid only the census tract codes that were valid for the 2000 Census. See Development of Nationwide Broadband Data to Evaluate Reasonable and Timely Deployment of Advanced Services to All Americans, Improvement of Wireless Broadband Subscribership Data, and Development of Data on Interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Subscribership, WC Docket No. 07-38, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 23 FCC Rcd 9691, 9695-97, paras. 10-12 (2008) (2008 Broadband Data Gathering Order). Although facilities-based mobile broadband providers report subscribership by state, they are required to identify the census tracts that best represent their broadband service footprint for each of the speed tiers in which they offer service. Id. at 6998, para. 16. Respectfully, Rick Harnish Executive Director WISPA 260-307-4000 cell 866-317-2851 Option 2 WISPA Office Skype: rick.harnish. [email protected] [email protected] (Trina and Rick)
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