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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 52 / Friday, March 19, 2021 / Rules and Regulations 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.349 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.
26. 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.350 Industry data indicate that there are 4,600 active cable systems in the United States.351 Of this total, all but five cable operators nationwide are small under the 400,000-subscriber size standard.352 In addition, under the Commissions rate regulation rules, a small system is a cable system serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers.353
Commission records show 4,600 cable systems nationwide.354 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.355 Thus, under this
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349 Id.

121.102b.
350 47 CFR 76.901e. The Commission determined that this size standard equates approximately to a size standard of $100 million or less in annual revenues. Implementation of Sections of the 1992 Cable Act: Rate Regulation, Sixth Report and Order and Eleventh Order on Reconsideration, 10 FCC Rcd 7393, 7408 1995.
351 The number of active, registered cable systems comes from the Commissions Cable Operations and Licensing System COALS database on August 15, 2015. See FCC, Cable Operations and Licensing System COALS, www.fcc.gov/coals last visited Oct. 25, 2016.
352 S&P Global Market Intelligence, Top Cable MSOs as of 12/2019, https platform.
marketintelligence.spglobal.com/Dec 2019. The five cable operators all had more than 400,000 basic cable subscribers.
353 47 CFR 76.901c.
354 See supra note 351.
355 Id.

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standard as well, we estimate that most cable systems are small entities.
27. 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 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. 356 As of 2019, there were approximately 48,646,056 cable video subscribers in the United States.357 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.358 Based on available data, we find that all but five incumbent cable operators are small entities under this size standard.359 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.360 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.
28. 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. 361 The Wired Telecommunications Carriers industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in operating and/or 356 47

CFR 76.90f and notes ff. 1, 2, and 3.
Global Market Intelligence, U.S. Cable Subscriber Highlights, Basic Subscribersactual 2018, U.S. Cable MSO Industry Total.
358 47 CFR 76.901f and notes ff. 1, 2, and 3.
359 S&P Global Market Intelligence, U.S. Cable Subscriber Highlights, Basic Subscribersactual 2019, U.S. Cable MSO Industry Total, see also U.S.
Multichannel Industry Benchmarks, U.S. Cable Industry Benchmarks, Basic Subscribers 2019Y, https platform.marketintelligence.spglobal.com.
360 The Commission receives such information on a case-by-case basis if a cable operator appeals a local franchise authoritys finding that the operator does not qualify as a small cable operator pursuant to 76.901f of the Commissions rules. See 47 CFR
76.901f.
361 See 13 CFR 120.201. The Wired Telecommunications Carrier category formerly used the NAICS code of 517110. As of 2017 the U.S.
Census Bureau definition shows the NAICS code as 517311 for Wired Telecommunications Carriers. See https www.census.gov/cgi-bin/sssd/naics/
naicsrch?code=517311&search=2017.
357 S&P

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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.362
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.363 By exception, establishments providing satellite television distribution services using facilities and infrastructure that they operate are included in this industry.364
The SBA determines that a wireline business is small if it has fewer than 1,500 employees.365 U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012 indicates that 3,117
wireline companies were operational during that year.366 Of that number, 3,083 operated with fewer than 1,000
employees.367 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.368 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.
29. All Other Telecommunications.
The All Other Telecommunications category is comprised of establishments primarily engaged in providing specialized telecommunications services, such as satellite tracking, 362 Id.
363 See id. Examples of this category are broadband internet service providers e.g., cable, DSL; local telephone carriers wired; cable television distribution services; long-distance telephone carriers wired; CCTV services; VoIP
service providers, using own operated wired telecommunications infrastructure; DTH services;
telecommunications carriers wired; satellite television distribution systems; and MMDS.
364 Id.
365 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS Code 517110.
366 See U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 Economic Census of the United States, Table No.
EC1251SSSZ5, Information: Subject SeriesEstab & Firm Size: Employment Size of Firms: 2012
517110 Wired Telecommunications Carriers.
https factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/
ECN/2012_US/51SSSZ5//naics517110.
367 Id.
368 See Annual Assessment of the Status of Competition in the Market for the Delivery of Video Programming, Eighteenth Report, Table III.A.5, 32
FCC Rcd 568, 595 Jan. 17, 2017.

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