FILING REMINDER:  FCC Regulatory Fee Payments Due by 11:59 PM EDT

on Tuesday, September 23, 2014

FCC regulatory fee payments must be made no later than 11:59 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time tomorrow, Tuesday, September 23, 2014. 

All licensees must use their FRN and password to access the Fee Filer System, and review, create, update, or change the fees owed.  Then, licensees must make their regulatory fee payments online with a credit card, online from a bank account, or by sending a wire transfer.  For payments by wire, a Form 159 should still be faxed so that the FCC can associate the wire payments with the correct regulatory fee information. 

The following payment amounts apply for FY 2014: 

• 2014 Cable/IPTV regulatory fee:  Cable systems and IPTV providers operating on October 1, 2013 must pay $0.99 per subscriber, a $0.03 decrease from 2013. 

• CARS licenses and permits:  CARS facilities operating on October 1, 2013 must pay $605.00, a $95 increase from 2013, even if the facility’s license expired after October 1, 2013.

• Interconnected VoIP regulatory fee:  $0.00343 for each dollar of interstate and international telecommunications revenue that a provider reports on its Form 499-A. 

If you have any questions about regulatory fee payments, please contact Scott Friedman at (312) 372-3930 or sfriedman@cinnamonmueller.com.

FCC Form 477 Due October 1, 2014

The next Form 477 is due October 1, 2014.  Telephone, broadband, and interconnected VoIP providers must report information about broadband connections and local telephone service as of June 30, 2014.  

This is the first Form 477 filing requiring the use of the new filing interface on the FCC’s website.  Filers must now submit various types of data by service and provider type.  For fixed broadband providers, Form 477 now requires the submission of:

• Deployment data on a census block basis, along with the maximum guaranteed or contractual upstream and downstream bandwidth offered.

• Subscription data on a census tract basis, along with the maximum advertised upstream and downstream bandwidth offered.

For both deployment and subscription data, fixed broadband providers must break out the information by the type of service (e.g., cable modem, fixed wireless).  In other words, if a broadband Internet access service provider offers multiple types of broadband technologies in one census tract, the filer is required to complete separate census tract entries for each technology. 

Interconnected VoIP providers must now also report subscription data on a census tract and state-by-state basis. 

Updated instructions for filers can be found here.  Filers can also review a brief summary of the Form 477 changes on the FCC’s website. 

If you have any questions about Form 477, please contact Scott Friedman at (312) 372-3930 or sfriedman@cinnamonmueller.com.

FCC EEO Form 396-C Due September 30, 2014

Multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”), including cable operators, must electronically file Form 396-C, the FCC’s MVPD Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) Program Annual Report by midnight on September 30, 2014.  To file Form 396-C, login to the Media Bureau’s CDBS Electronic Filing System.

Each year, the FCC’s Media Bureau releases a Public Notice listing the cable operators that have been randomly selected to file a Supplemental Investigation Sheet along with their Form 396-C. The FCC also mails a notice to those operators chosen to complete the Supplemental Investigation Sheet.

For this year’s filing, Supplemental Investigation Sheet filers must:

• Include one job description for employees in the category “Sales Workers” in Part I of the form.

• Answer questions 1, 6, and 7 in Part II of the form:

•  Describe the employment unit’s efforts to comply with the outreach provisions of 47 C.F.R. § 76.75(b).

• Report the findings of the employment unit’s analysis of its efforts to recruit, hire, promote in a nondiscriminatory manner and explain any difficulties encountered in implementing its EEO program.

• Describe the level of responsibility of each level of the employment unit’s management with respect to application and enforcement of its EEO policy and explain the procedure for review and control of managerial and supervisory performance.

• Attach, as Part III, a copy of the unit’s EEO public file report created in 2014 covering the previous 12 months.

If you have any questions about EEO compliance, please contact Scott Friedman at (312) 372-3930 or sfriedman@cinnamonmueller.com.

Cinnamon Mueller to Present Webinar on

Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Subpoena Compliance

            In conjunction with the American Cable Association, Cinnamon Mueller will present an ACA-member only webinar this Friday, September 26, 2014, covering the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and subpoena compliance.  The webinar will start at 11:30am EDT, and last approximately one hour.

            As Internet service providers, cable operators often receive online copyright infringement notices and subpoenas for customer information.  Recently, ACA and CM have seen an increase in the number of notices received by cable operators, especially subpoenas requesting customer information.  Multiple federal laws govern what information cable operators may disclose in these situations, including the Cable Privacy Act among others.  The DMCA, especially, is important, as it offers significant protections from copyright infringement claims arising from copyrighted material stored on or transiting across an ISP's network.  

For more information on this ACA member-only webinar, please contact Rob Shema of the American Cable Association at (412) 922-8300, ext. 30.