The FCC has set comment deadlines on its request for input on whether it should maintain a temporary exemption from enhanced transparency requirements under its new Title II-based network neutrality rules.
Comments will be due Aug. 5 and reply comments Sept. 4.
The American Cable Association had urged the FCC not to boost the transparency requirements and, if it did, to make it a permanent exemption.
The FCC's "enhanced" transparency requirements include data on packet loss, geographic area performance, average performance over time, prices, fees, data cap allowances, network practices including application agnostic degradation of service, and more.
The exemption means smaller operators don't have to report on the source of congestion, packet corruption, and jitter, and are not required to make their disclosures in real time.
The FCC wants info about whether the waiver, which applies to systems with 100,000 or fewer broadband subs, should be made permanent or whether it should have been granted at all, as well as whether 100,000 was the right cut-off.
In the FCC's Open Internet order, the commission gave the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau until Dec. 15, 2015 to adopt an order on whether to maintain the exemption, and at what level of subscriber.
The questions the FCC wants answers to include:
1. "What is the burden of the enhanced disclosures to smaller providers as measured in financial and other resources, and how is the burden disproportionately experienced by smaller providers?
2. "To the extent that concerns remain regarding any burdens, what is the corresponding benefit to customers of smaller providers of the information contained in those disclosures? For example, to what extent are customers of exempted providers deprived of information they need to understand the services they purchase and receive, and to monitor practices that could undermine an open Internet?
3. "Are rural customers likely to be disproportionally affected by exempting smaller providers from the enhanced disclosure requirements? How should any benefits of the enhanced transparency requirements to customers of exempted providers be balanced against any public interest benefits of reducing burdens to the providers?
4. "Will the reduction of compliance burdens for smaller providers benefit consumers in the areas served by those providers by, for example, facilitating broadband deployment, lower prices, or better quality services for consumers?"
