FCC Lifts Certified Professional Engineer Requirement for BDC Filings

The FCC today streamlined the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) process by eliminating a requirement that data submissions be certified by a “certified professional engineer.” The new rule adopted 3-0 by the new Republican-majority Commission allows certification by a “qualified engineer” familiar with the specific broadband network’s design.

The BDC process began in 2022 to replace FCC Form 477 as the primary way to gather information about where broadband services are available nationwide and map unserved areas. Broadband providers report subscriber and service area data to the FCC every six months each year. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program relies on BDC data to determine which households are eligible for support.

“Soon after we adopted the certified professional engineer standard, it became clear that finding people with those qualifications was both difficult and in the view of the FCC unnecessary, and so we’ve been waiving this rule ever since,” said Chairman Brendan Carr during the FCC’s monthly agenda meeting.

The certified professional engineer rule is “unworkable and impractical,” said newly sworn Commissioner Olivia Trusty during her first FCC meeting. “Thankfully, today’s item removes that unnecessary regulatory burden that could prevent the Commission from receiving timely, accurate broadband availability data, and replaces it with a more flexible approach that has been shown to work for providers.”

Carr noted during that meeting that Trusty is a former staffer for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which was part of the implementation of the Broadband Data Act of 2020 that created BDC.