You’re reading the Benton Foundation’s Weekly Round-up, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) telecommunications stories of the week. The round-up is delivered via e-mail each Friday.
Round-Up for the Week of February 19-23, 2018
State and federal emergency responders should have plans ready to go to counter rumors, misinformation and fake news in the wake of disasters, according to a new white paper from a Homeland Security Department advisory group. Those plans should include actively correcting misinformation on Facebook and Twitter with hashtags such as #rumor and #mythbuster, according to the draft report, which the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee approved for final publication Feb 22.
In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Notice), we take steps to harmonize our rules regarding jurisdictional separations to reflect the Federal Communications Commission’s actions in February 2017 to reduce and eliminate unnecessary accounting rules. We further our goal of updating and modernizing the Commission’s rules to minimize outdated compliance burdens on carriers and to free up scarce resources that can accordingly be used to expand modern networks that bring economic opportunity, job creation and civic engagement to all Americans.
The Federal Communications Commission lifted outdated rules related to the payphone industry that are no longer justified as payphone revenues have plummeted due to a changing communications marketplace. The Commission eliminated costly payphone audit requirements as part of an FCC effort to cut unnecessary and wasteful rules so that industry resources can be put to more productive use. Technological and marketplace changes have made these expensive audits unnecessary to ensure that the few remaining providers are compensated fairly.
The Federal Communications Commission proposed to eliminate a broadcast filing requirement and instead rely on publicly available information in its periodic reviews of broadcaster employment practices.
The Federal Communications Commission resolved the remaining petitions for reconsideration of Commission decisions in the February 2017 Mobility Fund Phase II Report and Order. In that Order, the Commission adopted rules to move forward with the MF-II auction, which will provide up to $4.53 billion in high-cost support over 10 years to extend high-speed mobile voice and broadband coverage to unserved and underserved areas across the United States. The Commission received seven petitions for reconsideration of the MF-II Report & Order.
© 1994-2026 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.
