WASHINGTON—The FCC has revealed a plan that will provide nearly $1 billion for the restoration and expansion of communication networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands following the damages of the 2017 hurricane season.

Chairman Ajit Pai revealed the plan on Tuesday, March 6, for which he proposed to create a $750 million Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund (Bringing Puerto Rico Together Fund) and a $204 million Connect USVI Fund, totaling $954 million in assistance. Each fund would provide additional short term assistance for the recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria and Irma, as well as longer-term support for expanding broadband access throughout the islands.

The details of the plan include an immediate infusion of $64 million in additional funding for short-term restoration efforts; a proposal to allocate $631 million in long-term funding for the restoration and expansion of fixed broadband connectivity in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; a proposal to allocate $259 million in medium-term funding for the restoration and expansion of 4G LTE mobile broadband connectivity; and the immediate conversion of the advanced funding the FCC provided last year to carriers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands into new funding by declining to offset that advanced funding against future universal service support payments.

[Pai to Visit Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands in March]

“The people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still recovering from last year’s devastating storms,” said Pai in the press release. “That means the FCC’s work is far from over. After my previous visit to Puerto Rico, I publicly committed to ‘thinking creatively and doing proactively to help restore networks on the island.’ The plan I’ve proposed today would deliver on that commitment and extend that vision even further.”

Pai will be in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from March 7-10 to further evaluate the recovery efforts.

WASHINGTON—About six months after Hurricane Maria made landfall and nearly four months after an initial trip to the islands, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has announced a follow-up trip to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to review recovery efforts of the islands’ communications facilities.

Pai will visit the islands with members of the FCC’s Hurricane Recovery Task Force as part of its efforts to learn from the devastating hurricane season in 2017 and apply those lessons to future disasters, as well as continuing to support ongoing recovery.

[Pai Visits Puerto Rico, Comments on Recovery Effort]

Recovery efforts that have already been made by the Commission since Hurricane Maria have included advancing the territories’ nearly $77 million universal service funding, accelerated the post-incentive auction transition to support broadcasters, granted temporary waivers of Lifeline’s recertification rules, expedited the experimental license for Alphabet’s Project Loon to provider internet access, approved targeted and flexible E-Rate support to restore connectivity in schools and libraries, and granted more than 500 waivers and requests for Special Temporary Authority to re-establish communications in affected areas.

“I look forward to leading a team to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to get a firsthand assessment of the situation on the ground,” said Pai in the FCC’s announcement. “It’s important to learn what has worked well and what could be done better—and to apply those lessons to future storms.”

[FCC Allows Early Repack in Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands] 

Pai will visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from March 7-10.

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission on Jan. 11 granted a request from 20 TV stations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to accelerate the timetable for construction of their post-repack channel assignment.

“The Commission has made it a top priority to assist with the recovery from last year’s devastating hurricanes,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a press release announcing the decision of the agency’s Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau. Failure to grant the request would have left broadcasters suffering from the effects of Hurricane Irma and Maria with two bad choices, said Pai.

Either they would have to rebuild their transmission facilities on their existing channel assignment only to have to build again for their post-auction assignment in a couple of years, or they would have stayed dark for an extended period, he said. “Now, stations are no longer confronting that choice because they’ll be able to use their post-auction channel more quickly,” he said in the release.

Another benefit is affected broadcasters will now have access to the TV Broadcaster Reimbursement Fund to pay for the portion of the rebuild that’s attributable to the channel reassignment, he added.

The agency released the press announcement in conjunction with a Public Notice of the task force and bureau’s decision. According to the notice, all but two of the stations affected by the hurricane were assigned to transition Phase 3, due to be completed June 21, 2019. The others were assigned to Phase 10, which is scheduled for completion on July 3, 2020.

In requesting the timetable acceleration, the stations asserted moving the transition deadline forward would not divert resources away for other stations currently transitioning. In support of that position, antenna manufacturer and installer, Electronics Research Inc. (ERI) filed a letter with the agency confirming it could support the stations’ early transition without impacting its support of other transitioning stations.

The stations also noted in their request that moving to their new channel assignments early would enable wireless broadband providers to deploy their services on the islands ahead of schedule and thus help to alleviate the desperate need for wireless broadband. T-Mobile submitted a letter to the agency in favor of the request and said that granting it would help with rapid deployment of new 600MHz wireless broadband.

“Based on the record, including the letters of support filed by ERI and T-Mobile, we find that an early transition is unlikely to impact other transitioning stations’ access to resources and will provide additional public interest benefits by expediting the deployment of new 600MHz wireless broadband services,” the notice said.

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

WASHINGTON—More than a month after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still feeling the effects on their broadcast and communication systems. Since the last DIRS update TV Technology covered, there has been improvement on the operation status of some Puerto Rico TV stations.

According to the DIRS report from Oct. 29, five TV stations—WKAQ, WIPR, WNJX, WTIN and WORO—in Puerto Rico are confirmed as operational. There are still two stations that are suspected to be out of service, WIPM and WELU. In addition, there are 67 TV stations that have been issued Special Temporary Authority to be offline and 33 TV stations that have unconfirmed status.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 14 stations have been issued Special Temporary Authority to be offline, while two stations have unconfirmed status.

Cell site service is also improving. Reports still show that Puerto Rico has 57.4 percent of its cell sites out of service, but all but 16 counties on the island have more than 50 percent of cell site service. The report also says that for the first time since Hurricane Maria hit no county in Puerto Rico has 100 percent of its cell sites down. Wireless companies have also opened up roaming on the island to boost access. As a result, approximately 64 percent of the population is reportedly covered by wireless carriers.

For the U.S. Virgin Islands, 36.4 percent of cell sites are still down, though St. John still has 100 percent of its cell sites out of service. DIRS reports that 93 percent of the population is covered.

DIRS is still activated for all counties in both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Read the full report here.