FCC Proposes $47M in Fines for Educational Broadband Services After Sub-Leases January 8, 2021 On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed $47,548,500 in fines against 10 entities that purportedly failed to provide the educational services and other obligations required by their Educational Broadband Service (EBS) spectrum licenses. The FCC issued Notices of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL) against the following entities with forfeiture amounts varying based on the number of alleged violations and the number of days the alleged violations occurred: The Commission claimed that under relevant FCC rules at the time, the non-local EBS licensees were obligated to reserve “a minimum of 5% of their capacity for educational use, provide at least 20 hours of educational programming per channel per week, and establish a local program committee in each community where it did not have a local presence.” However, according to the FCC, these entities failed to meet these license requirements.