During the reporting period, the FCC’s Reference Information Center (RIC) had 3,813 visitors requesting public Commission information. All visitors were met with an informed and courteous staff and were provided with information that was readily available within 30 minutes. In instances where the information was not available, customers were apprised of the status of their requests and were told when they could expect to receive their requested information.

Telephone inquiries referred to the Consumer Information Bureau over the 1-888-CALL-FCC or TTY 1- 888-TELL-FCC were handled by the Consumer Centers’ staff. Consumers are given the utmost attention and consideration regarding their specific inquiry. During the reporting period, 213,361 inquiries were received and resolved. Of these, 82,391 were resolved by the Consumer Centers’ staff within two business days. The remaining 130,970 inquiries were handled by our automated response system.

The FCC created a centralized page that contains information and links for downloading all of the different "Players," "Readers" or Plug-ins" that may be required for the proper display of some FCC web pages. The FCC provides information on its web site in a variety of file formats that best match the transmittal and display requirements of the information, while taking into account the level of resources typically available to its visitors. Most of these file formats are easily read and displayed by standard web browsers or word processing programs, but some files whose formats have been specifically developed for transmitting and displaying special content, such as multimedia or very precisely defined documents, may require the use of additional software to be presented correctly. Visitors to the site now have a centralized location that they can access from links at the bottom of every page to download and install on their computers free add-on programs called "plug-ins", readers or players that will enable their browsers to display or play the content of these specialized files.

Visitors to the site who use Internet Explorer (IE) will now see a custom-made FCC icon on the IE Address bar and in their Favorites Folder if they have "bookmarked" the FCC home page. This FCC- specific icon replaces the default Netscape icon previously provided by our Netscape server software, and should help users to better organize and to more quickly find the FCC shortcut.

E-mail inquiries sent to FCCINFO@FCC.GOV were immediately acknowledged by the Consumer Information Bureau with an automated response. During this reporting period 25,422 inquiries were received, the majority of which were resolved within 2 business days and the remaining completed within 20 business days. The Bureau is actively pursuing technology that will provide enhanced reporting capabilities and allow verification of our customer responses.