EBS In Action

On April 4, 2024, the Commission released a Public Notice providing guidance to Rural Tribal Priority Window EBS license holders about the upcoming deadline to demonstrate compliance with the FCC’s interim performance requirements.

Tribal licensees must notify the FCC of satisfaction of the interim performance requirements within 4 years of the issuance of their licenses.  The FCC notes that more than 150 Tribal licenses were issued in October of 2020, and thus have interim performance deadlines in October of 2024.   Many other Tribal licenses were issued after October of 2020, and have corresponding four-year deadlines occurring after October of 2024.

The FCC’s interim performance benchmarks are either coverage of 50% of the license GSA population for systems providing mobile or point-to-multipoint service, or construction of one link for each 50,000 of the GSA population for systems providing point-to-point service.   The Public Notice describes the nature of the showing required for each type of system.

The FCC’s Public Notice is available online here:  https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-327A1.pdf.