FCC Staffs Up Rural Broadband Efforts

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The FCC is making staffing changes in the leadership of the agency’s efforts to develop data to expand rural broadband deployment. Michael Janson will be the Director of the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and Acting Assistant Chief of the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA). Chelsea Fallon, who previously headed the task force, will lead the implementation of the new Digital Opportunity Data Collection within the Data Division of OEA. 

Steve Rosenberg becomes the Commission’s acting Chief Data and Analytics Officer and acting Chief of OEA’s Data Division, where implementation of the OPEN Data Government Act will be housed.

The Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force is responsible for implementing reverse auctions of universal service support in the high cost program, including the Connect America Fund Phase II and the proposed $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auctions. The Digital Opportunity Data Collection was adopted last month; it will collect geospatial broadband coverage maps from fixed broadband Internet service providers of areas where they make fixed service available. 

Janson first joined the Commission in 2013, and has directed projects and proceedings in the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the Enforcement Bureau, and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. He’s returning to the agency after teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Fallon has been with the FCC since 1999. Prior to her position as Director of the Task Force, she was Deputy Chief of the Industry Analysis and Technology Division of the Wireline Competition Bureau, now the Industry Analysis Division in OEA. 

Rosenberg joined the agency in 2009, with the National Broadband Plan team, where he worked to quantify the gaps in broadband availability. 

September 9, 2019

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