Je veux savoir à propos de…

52784

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 181 / Wednesday, September 22, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
also estimated the number of licensed noncommercial NCE FM radio stations to be 4,128. Nevertheless, the Commission does not compile and otherwise does not have access to information on the revenue of NCE
stations that would permit it to determine how many such stations would qualify as small entities. We also note, that in assessing whether a business entity qualifies as small under the above definition, business control affiliations must be included. The Commissions estimate therefore likely overstates the number of small entities that might be affected by its action, because the revenue figure on which it is based does not include or aggregate revenues from affiliated companies. In addition, to be determined a small business, an entity may not be dominant in its field of operation. We further note, that it is difficult at times to assess these criteria in the context of media entities, and the estimate of small businesses to which these rules may apply does not exclude any radio station from the definition of a small business on these basis, thus our estimate of small businesses may therefore be overinclusive. Also, as noted above, an additional element of the definition of small business is that the entity must be independently owned and operated.
The Commission notes that it is difficult at times to assess these criteria in the context of media entities and the estimates of small businesses to which they apply may be over-inclusive to this extent.
24. Cable Companies and Systems Rate Regulation. The Commission has also developed its own small business size standards, for the purpose of cable rate regulation. Under the Commissions rules, a small cable company is one serving 400,000 or fewer subscribers nationwide. Industry data indicate that there are 4,600 active cable systems in the United States. Of this total, all but five cable operators nationwide are small under the 400,000-subscriber size standard. In addition, under the Commissions rate regulation rules, a small system is a cable system serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers.
Commission records show 4,600 cable systems nationwide. Of this total, 3,900
cable systems have fewer than 15,000
subscribers, and 700 systems have 15,000 or more subscribers, based on the same records. Thus, under this standard as well, we estimate that most cable systems are small entities.
25. Cable System Operators Telecom Act Standard. The Communications Act of 1934, as amended, also contains a size standard for small cable system operators, which is a cable operator
VerDate Sep<11>2014

17:23 Sep 21, 2021

Jkt 253001

that, directly or through an affiliate, serves in the aggregate fewer than one percent of all subscribers in the United States and is not affiliated with any entity or entities whose gross annual revenues in the aggregate exceed $250,000,000. As of 2019, there were approximately 48,646,056 basic cable video subscribers in the United States.
Accordingly, an operator serving fewer than 486,460 subscribers shall be deemed a small operator if its annual revenues, when combined with the total annual revenues of all its affiliates, do not exceed $250 million in the aggregate. Based on available data, we find that all but five cable operators are small entities under this size standard.
We note that the Commission neither requests nor collects information on whether cable system operators are affiliated with entities whose gross annual revenues exceed $250 million.
Therefore, we are unable at this time to estimate with greater precision the number of cable system operators that would qualify as small cable operators under the definition in the Communications Act.
26. Direct Broadcast Satellite DBS
Service. DBS service is a nationally distributed subscription service that delivers video and audio programming via satellite to a small parabolic dish antenna at the subscribers location.
DBS is included in SBAs economic census category Wired Telecommunications Carriers. The Wired Telecommunications Carriers industry comprises 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 telecommunications networks.
Transmission facilities may be based on a single technology or 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 determines that a wireline business is small if it has fewer than 1,500 employees. U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 indicates that 3,117
wireline companies were operational during that year. Of that number, 3,083
operated with fewer than 1,000

PO 00000

Frm 00044

Fmt 4701

Sfmt 4700

employees. Based on that data, we conclude that the majority of wireline firms are small under the applicable SBA standard. Currently, however, only two entities provide DBS service, which requires a great deal of capital for operation: DIRECTV owned by AT&T
and DISH Network. DIRECTV and DISH
Network each report annual revenues that are in excess of the threshold for a small business. Accordingly, we must conclude that internally developed FCC
data are persuasive that, in general, DBS
service is provided only by large firms.
27. All Other Telecommunications.
The All Other Telecommunications category is comprised of establishments primarily engaged in providing specialized telecommunications services, such as satellite tracking, communications telemetry, and radar station operation. This industry also includes establishments primarily engaged in providing satellite terminal stations and associated facilities connected with one or more terrestrial systems and capable of transmitting telecommunications to, and receiving telecommunications from, satellite systems. Establishments providing internet services or voice over internet protocol VoIP services via clientsupplied telecommunications connections are also included in this industry. The SBA has developed a small business size standard for All Other Telecommunications, which consists of all such firms with annual receipts of $35 million or less. For this category, U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 shows that there were 1,442 firms that operated for the entire year. Of those firms, a total of 1,400 had annual receipts less than $25 million and 15
firms had annual receipts of $25 million to $49,999,999. Thus, the Commission estimates that the majority of All Other Telecommunications firms potentially affected by our action can be considered small.
28. RespOrgs. Responsible Organizations, or RespOrgs, are entities chosen by toll free subscribers to manage and administer the appropriate records in the toll free Service Management System for the toll free subscriber. Although RespOrgs are often wireline carriers, they can also include non-carrier entities. Therefore, in the definition herein of RespOrgs, two categories are presented, i.e., Carrier RespOrgs and Non-Carrier RespOrgs.
29. Carrier RespOrgs. Neither the Commission, the U.S. Census, nor the SBA have developed a definition for Carrier RespOrgs. Accordingly, the Commission believes that the closest NAICS code-based definitional categories for Carrier RespOrgs are
E:FRFM22SER2.SGM

22SER2