Telecommunication

FCC’s 2015 pole attachment order upheld by circuit court

The Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 pole attachment order was upheld in a ruling July 31 by the Eighth Circuit Court, providing a potential win for competitive and incumbent providers expanding their fiber networks. In 2015, a group of electric utilities, including Ameren Corporation, American Electric Power Service, CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, and Virginia Electric and Power Company petitioned to review a November 2015 order of the FCC governing the rates that utility companies may charge telecommunications providers for attaching their wired facilities to utility-owned poles.

The FCC, which was joined by intervenors Incompas, National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Level 3 Communications, and USTelecom, opposed the petition. In delivering its decision, the court found that the November 2015 Order provided a “reasonable interpretation of the ambiguity” in Section 224 of the Pole Attachments Act.

FTC Escalates the Fight against Illegal Robocalls Using Consumer Complaints to Aid Industry Call-Blocking Solutions

Every day American consumers report tens of thousands of illegal robocalls to the Federal Trade Commission, and now the FTC is helping put that information to work boosting industry efforts to stop unwanted calls before they reach consumers. Under a new initiative announced by the FTC, when consumers report Do Not Call or robocall violations to the agency, the robocaller phone numbers consumers provide will be released each day to telecommunications carriers and other industry partners that are implementing call-blocking solutions.

Unwanted and illegal robocalls are the FTC’s number-one complaint category, with more than 1.9 million complaints filed in the first five months of 2017 alone. By reporting illegal robocalls, consumers help law enforcement efforts to stop the violators behind these calls. In addition, under the initiative, the FTC is now taking steps to provide more data, more often to help power the industry solutions that block illegal calls. The consumer complaint data is crucial because many of today’s call-blocking solutions rely on “blacklists” -- databases of telephone numbers that have received significant consumer complaints -- as one way to determine which calls should be blocked or flagged before they reach consumers’ phones. The new data that FTC is making available also will include the date and time the unwanted call was received, the general subject matter of the call (such as debt reduction, energy, warranties, home security, etc.), and whether the call was a robocall.

Verizon says pole attachment reforms should not be tied to union agreements

Verizon is taking a different view on the one-touch make-ready (OTMR) proposals being considered by the Federal Communications Commission, saying that any new rules should not be driven by the labor agreements carriers have with unions like the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In an FCC filing, the service provider said that developing OTMR rules that are in line with labor agreements could cause issues for providers seeking access to poles. “The commission should not tailor its OTMR rules to specific companies’ particular collective bargaining agreements,” Verizon said in the filing. “That approach would result in a patchwork of rules that might be subject to change every few years and would be administratively unmanageable for new attachers.” This is different than the position that has long been held by fellow telecommunication companies AT&T and Frontier.

Louisville’s Award-Winning Redlining Map Helps Drive Digital Inclusion Efforts

Louisville (KY) has garnered much praise for an award-winning data map that visualizes the modern day effects of redlining — a practice that dates back to the 1930s, and involves racial and socioeconomic discrimination in certain neighborhoods through the systematic denial of services or refusal to grant loans and insurance.

This map, dubbed Redlining Louisville: The History of Race, Class and Real Estate, takes historic data about redlining found in the national archives in Washington (DC) in 2013 and combines it with a timeline of historic events, data about current poverty levels, neighborhood boundaries and racial demographic info. With a host of tools including buttons and sliders, users can clearly see the correlation between the deliberate injustices of the past and the plight of struggling neighborhoods today. Jeana Dunlap, Louisville’s director of redevelopment strategies, said the value of this map is wide-reaching, and that it serves to foster awareness and spur discussion of many civic challenges, including digital equity, poverty, and access to basic needs such as full-service grocery stores and health-care services.

FCC Fines Robocalling Platform Almost $3 Million for Illegal Calls

The Federal Communications Commission today issued a $2.88 million fine against a New Mexico-based company, Dialing Services, for facilitating unlawful robocalls. Robocallers used Dialing Services’ calling technology platform to make millions of illegal robocalls to mobile phones without express prior consent from consumers.

AT&T, Verizon say 90 days is enough for copper retirement notices

AT&T and Verizon, two of the nation’s largest telecommunication companies, are making their case again to the Federal Communications Commission to shorten the copper retirement notice from 180 to 90 days. The longer 180-day period was developed under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in the regulator’s 2015 Technology Transitions Order.

As part of that order, the FCC proposed giving competitive carriers and businesses a six-month notice, while residential customers get three months’ notice before copper facilities are shut down. Under that order, AT&T, Verizon and other ILECs are required to provide notice to CLEC wholesale customers that use copper facilities to deliver voice and Ethernet over Copper (EoC) services to business customers. ILECs would also be given the option to retire copper networks and replace them with fiber without prior commission approval, but only if no service is discontinued, reduced, or impaired.

When dialing 9-1-1 doesn’t work and how Kari’s Law helps fix it

Soon after his daughter's funeral, Hank Hunt began reaching out to dozens of resources to make sure his tragedy never happens to anyone else. His mission: to ensure 9-1-1 could be dialed directly from any landline phone from any public building in the US. He names it “Kari’s Law.”

A few state legislatures have passed Kari’s Law and Congress is considering nationwide action. But Verizon didn’t wait for a government mandate. Verizon began updating the network we use in our landline territory to serve multi-line customers and allow for direct dialing of 9-1-1, becoming the industry leader in making the goal of Kari’s Law a reality. The project is 97% complete and by summer’s end it will be at 99% with the final changes scheduled to be finished before the end of 2017.

FCC Takes Action to Alleviate Robocalls to Reassigned Phone Numbers

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Inquiry to explore methods by which reassigned telephone number data could be made available to callers to avoid making unwanted calls to consumers.

FCC Seeks Comment on Combating Rural Call Completion Problems

Continuing its work to improve communications services in rural America, the Federal Communications Commission took additional steps to combat the problem of long-distance calls failing to reach rural communities.

The FCC is seeking comment on rules that would hold phone companies more accountable for ensuring that long-distance calls to rural America get through to a called party. Certain telephone companies that hand off calls to intermediate providers would be required to monitor the performance of these intermediaries and hold them accountable if calls don’t go through. By making long-distance providers accountable for the rural call completion performance of their intermediate providers, this new proposal would more directly and quickly tackle rural call completion problems than the FCC’s current regulations. This solution represents an effective means of improving rural call completion while not unnecessarily burdening providers because it follows industry best practices. The Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks comment on this proposal as well as on proposals to either modify or eliminate the FCC’s current rural call completion data collection and reporting rules.

House Appropriations Committee Approves the Fiscal Year 2018 Agriculture Appropriations Bill

The House Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year 2018 Agriculture Appropriations bill on a voice vote. The legislation funds important agricultural and food programs and services, including food and medical product safety, animal and plant health programs, rural development and farm services, agricultural trade, financial marketplace oversight, and nutrition programs. The legislation includes $6.94 billion for rural electric and telephone infrastructure loans, the same level as fiscal year 2017.

CenturyLink wants to shed 7 legacy analog, low-speed data services in 24 states

CenturyLink is seeking the Federal Communications Commission’s permission to shut down a number of low-speed data and analog services in 24 states located in its predecessor company CenturyTel’s territories, citing lack of demand. Specifically, the service provider wants to discontinue seven of its wholesale interstate analog and low-speed data services: Metallic, Telegraph, Narrowband, Wideband analog, Wideband Digital, Program Audio and Analog Video services.

CenturyLink, which offers these services through CenturyLink’s FCC’s Tariff numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, has requested to shut down these analog and low-speed data services by September 22, 2017. The service provider said in its FCC filing that “there are no customers for any of these low-speed analog services.” All of these services were used for applications that were part of a bygone era that have been replaced by more modern IP-based services.

Mexico's America Movil details argument in telecom dispute

Billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil argued on July 5 against rules brought in by an overhaul of the country's telecommunications industry, saying in a statement they were unfair and had led to a loss of its business rights. In the latest chapter in a fight that could shape the future of competition in the sector, the supreme court is considering whether to undo parts of an overhaul that tilted the playing field against Slim's long-dominant America Movil and led to steep drops in prices that Mexicans pay for cell phone service and internet access.

Slim's lawyers argued that unfair "asymmetrical" rules prohibit America Movil from charging other telephone carriers for connecting their calls made to customers on its network, but let those companies charge America Movil for connecting its calls to their customers. The so-called "zero tariff" applied to Slim's company has undermined the power of the sector's regulator IFT as well as the rights of America Movil units Telmex and Telcel under past concessions awarded to them by the government, the statement said. The company said it has been harmed by the elimination of its rights to "cost recovery, economic stability and financial balance" granted by the concessions.

Illinois OKs end of landlines, but FCC approval required

An AT&T-backed bill to end traditional landline phone service in Illinois is now the law of the land. Overriding Gov Bruce Rauner's (R-IL) veto, the General Assembly approved the telecom modernization bill on July 1, enabling AT&T to disconnect its remaining 1.2 million landline customers statewide, pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission. But holdouts may have some time before AT&T pulls the plug for good on its legacy telephone service.

"It's important for our Illinois customers to know that traditional landline phone service from AT&T is not going away anytime soon," said Paul La Schiazza, AT&T Illinois president. With customers switching to internet-based and wireless phone services, AT&T has been pushing for legislation to allow it to unplug its aging landline network and focus on the modern alternatives. AT&T said it is losing about 5,000 landline customers statewide each week, with less than 10 percent of Illinois households in its territory still using the service. While AT&T ultimately needs approval from the FCC to abandon a long-standing obligation to maintain its "plain old telephone service," it has already gotten similar legislation passed in 19 of the 20 other states where it is the legacy telephone carrier, with California as the only holdout.

FCC Takes Pains So That Code Of Federal Regulations Contains Current FCC Privacy Rules

The Federal Communications Commission released an Order taking a necessary procedural step so that the Code of Federal Regulations contains an accurate reflection of the FCC’s current privacy rules.

Specifically, the FCC’s pre-2016 Privacy Order rules that applied to wireless and wireline telephone carriers have been reinstated following the recent resolution of disapproval of the FCC’s 2016 privacy regulations under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The resolution of disapproval of the FCC’s privacy regulations, signed by President Trump on April 3, 2017, declared that the 2016 Privacy Order “shall have no force or effect” and “shall be treated as though [it] had never taken effect.” In addition, the June 29, 2017 Order also dismisses as moot 11 petitions for reconsideration of the Commission’s 2016 Privacy Order.

FCC Chairman Pai Responds to Congress on Local Service Rate Floor

FCC Chairman Pai sent letters to Sens Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Luther Strange (R-AL) and Reps Robert Aderholt (R-AL) and Mo Brooks (R-AL) on June 20, 2017, in response to their letter about the local service rate floor. Pai said after several years of experience with the rate floor rule, it now appears to impose high costs on rural consumers without any corresponding federal benefit. He noted the Commission recently froze the rate floor at the current minimum rate of $18 per month and adopted an NPRM seeking comment on whether the rate floor has met its intended purposes, whether changes should be made to the current rate floor methodology, or whether it should be eliminated entirely.

Verizon says de facto copper retirement concept inhibits fiber migration, creates uncertainty

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to get rid of the so-called de facto retirements from its copper retirement definition, arguing that it could create uncertainty in the process of shutting down legacy facilities. In the FCC’s 2015 Technology Transitions Order, the FCC defined “copper retirement” as the “removal or disabling of copper loops, subloops, or the feeder portion of such loops or subloops, or the replacement of such loops with fiber-to-the-home loops or fiber-to-the curb loops.” However, the company said that the current process might hold up the process of migrating what it calls “chronic” copper customers, or those that have had multiple service visits to resolve issues.

"The 'de facto' concept should be removed because it introduces significant uncertainty to the copper retirement process,” Verizon said in a FCC filing. “Among other practical problems, the vague de facto retirement concept could result in unmanageable loop-by-loop retirement requirements or complicate a provider’s ability to move customers to fiber when that is the best and most efficient way to resolve troubles they are experiencing with copper facilities.”

Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY) calls for FCC crackdown on ringless robocalls

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) called on the Federal Communications Commission to block telemarketers from leaving ringless voicemails, a new technology for sales calls. "With billions of robocalls made to cellphones each year, the feds should be doing more to rein in annoying telemarketers, not throw gas on the problem and add fuel to cellphone spam," said Sen Schumer.

Robocalls, or automated calls to consumers soliciting their information or business, have increased in recent years. Lawmakers and the federal government have taken note and ramped up efforts to curb them. In 2016, Schumer railed against the practice, noting that in two New York ZIP codes alone consumers had received 50 million robocalls in a single month. Ringless voicemails, unlike traditional calls, go straight to a recipient's voice mailbox. “Even though these voicemails may be quieter than what we traditionally think of as cellphone spam, they are no less intrusive or annoying to consumers,” Schumer wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Sunday. “Ringless voicemail would be yet another way for consumers to feel that their phones are not their own. Unsolicited, spam robocall voicemails could flood mailboxes, clogging out legitimate messages.”

Ringless voicemail spam won’t be exempt from anti-robocall rules

A petition to exempt ringless voicemails from anti-robocall rules has been withdrawn after heavy opposition. In March, a marketing company called All About the Message petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a ruling that would prevent anti-robocall rules from applying to ringless voicemails. But the company withdrew its petition without explanation in a letter to the FCC last week, even though the commission hadn't yet ruled on the matter. As the name suggests, a ringless voicemail is the delivery of a voice message to a voicemail box without ringing the recipient's phone.

The now-withdrawn petition asked the FCC to declare that this type of message does not count as a "call" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which prohibits non-emergency calls made with auto-dialers, artificial voices, or prerecorded voices without the "prior express consent of the called party."

Eighth Circuit to Hear Challenges to FCC's Business Data Services Decision

Legal challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's business data services (BDS) reforms have been consolidated in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Petitions to deny some or all of the FCC's BDS report and order updating the framework for regulating business data services had been filed in three separate federal appeals courts. Those appeals came from CenturyLink, Citizens Telecommunications Company of Minnesota and a consortium of telecoms including Sprint.

The DC Circuit is the one with primary jurisdiction over telecommunications, but in the case of multiple filings, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation holds a lottery to determine the venue. CenturyLink told the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that the FCC's regulation of rates on DS1 and DS3 service in areas deemed noncompetitive was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and otherwise illegal. It said the FCC forced those price caps on competitive carriers despite evidence the cost of service had actually gone down.

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for July 2017 Open Meeting

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the July Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 13, 2017:

  1. Call Authentication Trust Anchor – The Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry that seeks comment on methods to authenticate telephone calls to further secure our telephone networks against illegal robocallers. The Notice seeks comment on implementing authentication standards for telephone calls, as well as the Commission’s role in this process and other public policy considerations. (WC Docket No. 17-97)
  2. Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls – The Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry that explores methods by which reassigned telephone number data could be made available to callers to avoid making unwanted calls to consumers. (CG Docket No. 17-59)
  3. Protecting Consumers from Unauthorized Carrier Changes and Related Unauthorized Charges – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining steps to further curtail slamming and cramming. (CG Docket No. 17-169)
  4. Rural Call Completion - The Commission will consider a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes rule changes to better address ongoing problems in the completion of long-distance telephone calls to rural areas. The Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposes to (1) adopt new rural call completion requirements for covered providers, and (2) eliminate the Commission’s existing rural call completion recording, retention, and reporting rules. (WC Docket No. 13-39)
  5. Video Description – The Commission will consider a Report and Order which increases the required hours of video described programming that covered broadcast stations and MVPDs must provide to consumers. (MB Docket No. 11-43)
  6. Updating the Part 2 Equipment Authorization Program – The Commission will consider a First Report and Order that would update and amend its equipment authorization program by replacing two certification procedures with a new Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity process, codifying procedures for the electronic labeling of devices, modernizing the requirements related to the importation of electronic equipment, and incorporating up-to-date methods for equipment compliance measurements into the rules. (ET Docket No. 15-170)
  7. Radar Services in the 76-81 GHz Band – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would address use of the 76-81 GHz band under the Part 95 rules to support a broad range of vehicular radar uses, such as collision avoidance and adaptive cruise control systems, as well as to expand the types of fixed and mobile radar operations permitted within airport environments. (ET Docket No. 15-26)
  8. Wireless Microphone Operations – The Commission will consider an Order on Reconsideration and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would address licensed and unlicensed wireless microphone operations in the TV bands and various other frequency bands. (GN Docket No. 14-166; ET Docket No. 14-165)

Consumer Protection Month at the FCC

Americans are reaping the benefits of rapid and exciting changes in the ways we communicate. But many of the problems that consumers confront stubbornly remain. For too long, Americans have been plagued by unwanted and unlawful robocalls. For too long, they’ve found unauthorized charges and changes to their phone service on their bills—practices commonly known as “slamming” and “cramming.” And for too long, some phone calls that are placed to rural residents have been dropped. Efforts to excommunicate this unholy triad of consumer scourges—unlawful robocalls, slamming/cramming, and rural call completion—headline the FCC’s agenda in July. During Consumer Protection Month, we will take up several public interest initiatives to address problems that too many Americans face.

FCC Proposes Rules To Aid Investigation Of Threatening Calls

The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules to help unmask anonymous callers who threaten and harass schools, religious institutions, and other victims.

This effort follows the FCC’s temporary waiver earlier this year of caller ID privacy rules in order to help law enforcement address threatening phone calls received by Jewish Community Centers. The FCC is seeking to help law enforcement and community institutions get from telephone providers quick access to the information they need to identify and thwart threatening callers. The FCC seeks to streamline this process so that, going forward, institutions facing harassing or threatening calls can work with law enforcement to access caller ID info of the anonymous callers more quickly than the current, case-by-case waiver process. The proposal would amend the FCC’s rules to ensure that law enforcement and threatened parties can quickly identify threatening callers without the regulatory delay of applying for and being granted a waiver of the rules. The proposal lays out a path that protects consumer privacy by ensuring that caller information only be disclosed for truly threatening calls and that only law enforcement personnel and others responsible for the safety and security of the threatened party have access to otherwise-protected caller ID information.

FCC Proposes $120 Million Fine of Massive Caller ID Spoofing Operation

The Federal Communications Commission proposed a $120 million fine against an individual who apparently made almost 100 million spoofed robocalls in violation of the Truth in Caller ID Act. The law prohibits callers from deliberately falsifying caller ID information to disguise their identity with the intent to harm or defraud consumers.

Adrian Abramovich of Miami, Florida, apparently made 96 million spoofed robocalls during a three-month period. Abramovich’s operation apparently made the spoofed calls in order to trick unsuspecting consumers into answering and listening to his advertising messages. The proposed fine is based on 80,000 spoofed calls that the FCC has verified. Consumers reported receiving calls that appeared to come from local numbers but, if they answered, they heard an automated message prompting them to “Press 1” to hear about “exclusive” vacation deals from well-known travel and hospitality companies such as Marriott, Expedia, Hilton and TripAdvisor. Consumers who did press the button were then transferred to foreign call centers where live operators attempted to sell vacation packages often involving timeshares. The call centers were not affiliated with the well-known travel and hospitality companies mentioned in the recorded message.

FCC Seeks Comment on Eliminating Burdensome Payphone-Era Rules

In its continuing effort to eliminate costly and unnecessary regulations, the Federal Communications Commission proposed easing certain audit and reporting rules to better reflect the changing role of payphones in a mobile era.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) adopted by the FCC proposes to eliminate an annual audit and associated reporting requirement that in some cases reportedly costs more to undertake than the payphone compensation revenue it protects. An accompanying Order waives the audit and reporting requirements for 2017 and 2018 while the FCC weighs their permanent elimination in the future. Obligations to appropriately compensate payphone providers are not affected by today’s actions. The FCC proposes eliminating the audit and reporting requirements. As an alternative, it asks about replacing them with a less burdensome requirement such as self-certification, and seeks comment on these issues and additional reforms.