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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 109 / Wednesday, June 9, 2021 / Proposed Rules available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format e.g., .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf. Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commissions ex parte rules.
Appendix A
Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis 1. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended RFA, the Commission has prepared this Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis IRFA of the possible significant economic impact on small entities by the policies and rules proposed in this Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Further Notice.
The Commission requests written public comments on this IRFA. Comments must be identified as responses to the IRFA and must be filed by the deadlines for comments provided on the first page of the Further Notice. The Commission will send a copy of the Further Notice, including this IRFA, to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration SBA. In addition, the Further Notice and IRFA
or summaries thereof will be published in the Federal Register.
A. Need for, and Objectives of, the Proposed Rules 2. In order to continue the Commissions work combating illegal robocalls, the Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Further Notice proposes to accelerate the date by which small voice service providers that originate an especially large amount of call traffic, and thus are at particular risk of originating unlawful robocalls, must implement STIR/SHAKEN. The Further Notice proposes finding that shortening the extension is necessary because a subset of small voice service providers originate a disproportionate amount of robocalls and seeks comment on how to define this scope of entities.
The Further Notice proposes shortening the STIR/SHAKEN implementation extension from two years to one year for such entities. The Further Notice seeks comment on these proposals, and whether we should modify existing rules or adopt new rules to monitor compliance.
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B. Legal Basis 3. The Further Notice proposes to find authority for the proposed rules under section 4b5Aii of the TRACED
Act. Section 4b5Aii gives us authority to grant extensions of the caller ID authentication implementation deadline for a reasonable period of time upon a finding of undue
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hardship. Under that section, we granted the small provider extension we now propose to curtail, but did not explicitly interpret the meaning of the term reasonable in the context of that extension. The Further Notice proposes concluding that, under the TRACED
Act, reasonable means that in determining the length of any extension, we must balance the hardship faced by a provider or class of providers with the benefit of implementing STIR/SHAKEN
expeditiously; and that, consequently, we have the authority to grant a shorter extension for providers that we believe present a higher risk of originating illegal robocalls, and seeks comment on this interpretation.
C. Description and Estimate of the Number of Small Entities to Which the Proposed Rules Will Apply 4. The RFA directs agencies to provide a description of and, where feasible, an estimate of the number of small entities that may be affected by the proposed rules and by the rule revisions on which the Notice seeks comment, if adopted. The RFA generally defines the term small entity as having the same meaning as the terms small business, small organization, and small governmental jurisdiction.
In addition, the term small business has the same meaning as the term small-business concern under the Small Business Act. A small-business concern is one which: 1 Is independently owned and operated; 2
is not dominant in its field of operation;
and 3 satisfies any additional criteria established by the SBA.
1. Wireline Carriers 5. Wired Telecommunications Carriers. The U.S. Census Bureau defines this industry as establishments primarily engaged in operating and/or providing access to transmission facilities and infrastructure that they own and/or lease for the transmission of voice, data, text, sound, and video using wired communications networks.
Transmission facilities may be based on a single technology or a combination of technologies. Establishments in this industry use the wired telecommunications network facilities that they operate to provide a variety of services, such as wired telephony services, including VoIP services, wired cable audio and video programming distribution, and wired broadband internet services. By exception, establishments providing satellite television distribution services using facilities and infrastructure that they operate are included in this industry.
The SBA has developed a small
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business size standard for Wired Telecommunications Carriers, which consists of all such companies having 1,500 or fewer employees. U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 show that there were 3,117 firms that operated that year.
Of this total, 3,083 operated with fewer than 1,000 employees. Thus, under this size standard, the majority of firms in this industry can be considered small.
6. Local Exchange Carriers LECs.
Neither the Commission nor the SBA
has developed a size standard for small businesses specifically applicable to local exchange services. The closest applicable NAICS Code category is Wired Telecommunications Carriers.
Under the applicable SBA size standard, such a business is small if it has 1,500
or fewer employees. U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 show that there were 3,117
firms that operated for the entire year.
Of that total, 3,083 operated with fewer than 1,000 employees. Thus under this category and the associated size standard, the Commission estimates that the majority of local exchange carriers are small entities.
7. Incumbent LECs. Neither the Commission nor the SBA has developed a small business size standard specifically for incumbent local exchange services. The closest applicable NAICS Code category is Wired Telecommunications Carriers.
Under the applicable SBA size standard, such a business is small if it has 1,500
or fewer employees. U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 indicate that 3,117 firms operated the entire year. Of this total, 3,083 operated with fewer than 1,000
employees. Consequently, the Commission estimates that most providers of incumbent local exchange service are small businesses that may be affected by our actions. According to Commission data, one thousand three hundred and seven 1,307 Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers reported that they were incumbent local exchange service providers. Of this total, an estimated 1,006 have 1,500 or fewer employees. Thus, using the SBAs size standard the majority of incumbent LECs can be considered small entities.
8. Competitive Local Exchange Carriers Competitive LECs, Competitive Access Providers CAPs, Shared-Tenant Service Providers, and Other Local Service Providers. Neither the Commission nor the SBA has developed a small business size standard specifically for these service providers. The appropriate NAICS Code category is Wired Telecommunications Carriers and under that size standard, such a business is small if it has 1,500
or fewer employees. U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 indicate that 3,117 firms
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