FCC Won't Extend Broadband Competition Comment Deadline

But provides brief relief for deployment report

The FCC has provided a five-business-day extension for comments and reply comments on its Fourteenth Broadband Deployment report, but denied requests for a longer extension and for any extension on its request for comment on the state of fixed broadband competition.

The new comment dates for the deployment report are Sept. 17 and Oct. 1, which moves the end of the first comment period away from Rosh Hashanah. The FCC did not specify which holiday, but Rosh Hashanah begins sundown Sept. 9 and the initial comment deadline was Sept. 10.

Public Knowledge, INCOMPAS, Common Cause, The Greenlining Institute, Communications Workers of America, Benton Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, TEXALTEL, Federation of Internet Service Providers of America, and Northwest Telecommunications Association jointly sought an extension of initial comments on both the report and competition to Sept. 27 and replies for deployment report to Oct. 27.

They said the extension was needed both to move it away from the holiday and to give stakeholders more time to weigh in.

The FCC gave them the holiday break, but pointed to the need to use the record in both to come up with a congressionally mandated (by RAY BAUMS Act) report on the Communications Marketplace by Dec. 31, the FCC could not give them the extra time and fully consider that record and meet the deadline.