Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross downplayed any disagreement within the Trump administration on how much it wants to restrict Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei via U.S. trade rules. His Thursday exchange with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., came during a Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department’s FY 2021 budget request. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., questioned the agency's broadband coverage data collection.
Country of origin cases
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will propose his colleagues vote at their March 31 meeting to require phone service providers to cut down on spoofed robocalls through caller ID authentication using secure telephone identity revisited standards and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens. That would deliver on Pai's previous comments on Stir/Shaken and a newer law.
In an unusual collaboration, Verizon joined with the National Consumer Law Center and Consumer Federation of America to urge the Supreme Court to preserve the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when it decides later this year on Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants. To be heard April 22, the case could have big implications for the FCC and companies concerned about enforcement (see 2001130044). Verizon and the consumer groups filed an amicus brief in docket 19-631. Members of Congress and states supported the importance of preserving the TCPA. Retailers said TCPA is leading to lawsuits never envisioned by Congress, and should be reined in.
Chinese tech company Baidu “open-sourced” its facial-recognition and artificial-intelligence technologies to help contain the coronavirus by deploying “fever-screening systems” in rail stations, hospitals and municipal buildings across China, said CEO Robin Li on a Q4 call Thursday. “Our systems remotely measure the temperatures of up to 200 people per minute,” including those wearing protective face masks and hats, he said. The technology also can “identify those who are not wearing masks or wearing them improperly,” he said. The “near-term impact” on the Baidu business has been negative, “as many of our top industries, such as travel, real estate, auto, health care and franchising, suffer from reduced off-line activities,” said Li. But the positive “side effect” is that people are “staying home more, and they have the opportunity to get to know Baidu's products and services better,” he said. “Search queries on coronavirus exceeded 1 billion during the Chinese New Year, as users came to Baidu for fact checking and finding more reliable information.” Baidu expects Q1 revenue down between 5% and 13% from a year earlier, said Chief Financial Officer Herman Yu. The coronavirus situation in China is “evolving, and business visibility is very limited,” he said. The Q1 forecast is based on a “current and preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertainty,” he said. The Chinese New Year holiday was originally scheduled to end Jan. 30, but many shops, restaurants and malls “remain closed down, as we speak,” he said. “Consequently, the rebound for online marketing after Chinese New Year has been slow this year.” Business conditions in the past two weeks “have started to pick up as people return to work,” said Yu. Baidu employees “are gradually returning to the office,” he said. “We assume businesses across China will do the same.”
Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks Friday criticized an FCC NPRM, approved 3-2, proposing sharing communications outage information with other federal and state agencies. The two Democrats dissented.
Telecom groups withdrew a 2014 emergency petition for waiver, said a filing posted Friday in docket 10-90. Parties are NTCA, WTA, NECA, Eastern Rural Telecom Association, Frontier Communications and Windstream. They had asked for a pause in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate toll VoIP traffic "until full implementation of Connect America Fund phase II" (see 1407090083). "With five-plus years having passed now and those universal service reforms having been put into effect in the intervening period, the request was somewhat moot," emailed an NTCA spokesperson.
Senate passage of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998) got more praise Thursday and Friday (see 2002270070), including from the bill’s original co-sponsors and FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. The bill would allocate at least $1 billion to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment deemed to threaten national security. The House passed the measure in December (see 1912160052), meaning it now moves on to President Donald Trump. “The existence of Huawei’s technology in our networks represents an immense threat to America’s national and economic security,” said original bill sponsors House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. "This bipartisan bill will help communities across the country by bolstering efforts to keep our communications supply chain safe from foreign adversaries and other dangerous actors, while helping small and rural providers remove and replace suspect network equipment.” Starks tweeted he’s “very glad to see bipartisan agreement around helping small carriers get untrustworthy equipment out of their networks.” The FCC “needs to work quickly to get these funds to providers,” he said, replying to our tweet reporting the development. “We’ll all be more secure when the replacement is done.” FCC national security supply chain rules barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE from networks funded by the USF took effect in January (see 2001020027).
Small, rural carriers may find it harder to absorb costs of federal requirements to trace illegal robocalls, said panelists at an FCBA event Thursday on implementing the Traced Act, which became law last year. Voice providers aren't allowed to add line item charges for call blocking services. That doesn't mean carriers won't raise prices. "It depends on the magnitude of the costs" to companies for upgrading their networks and ongoing costs to administer call blocking and traceback efforts, NTCA Senior Vice President-Industry and Business Affairs Mike Romano told us. "If the costs are significant, they'll have to" raise prices, Romano said. He hasn't heard of such plans. Philip Macres of Klein Law Group said he has heard that even for small operators, it can cost $100,000 to upgrade a network for call authentication. "There are upfront costs and ongoing costs to operate," Romano said. USTelecom Senior Vice President-Policy and Advocacy Patrick Halley said operators should be careful in evaluating vendors because risk can be involved "when you have a regulatory obligation to do something in a short period." Romano said NTCA members are sensitive to issues of "reasonable analytics" used for call authentication because rural carriers were the ones that historically had problems with call completion when larger carriers didn't send phone traffic their way. The vast majority of members run IP-based phone networks, Romano said, which makes it easier to provide caller authentication for traffic originating on them. Too often, rural carriers must rely on tandem networks that still use TDM switching, he said: In many of those cases, authenticated calls from the small IP-based phone companies "will be sending out [authentication] certificates to nowhere."
Two top House Appropriations Committee Democrats told America’s Public Television Stations Wednesday they intend to again prevent a proposed drawdown of federal CPB funding for FY 2021. President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this month again proposed to zero out the funding (see 2002100056) over two years. CPB federal funding rose $20 million for FY 2020, the first increase in a decade (see 1912170052). Opponents of federal CPB money “lose every time” they try to zero it out “and they’re going to lose again” this year, said House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey of New York. A funding drawdown “is not going to happen,” said Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. “It might be a fight every year, but that’s all right.” She noted the final FY 2020 increase for CPB was $30 million below the amount the House originally allocated (see 1903190033), but still a significant hike. APTS is again seeking a $50 million increase for FY 2020. CEO Patrick Butler believes a larger hike might face difficulties (see 2002240044). DeLauro told us she’s “not going to speculate” on whether a further funding increase is feasible this year, but “we’re going to fight” for every extra “dollar we can.” Congressional Public Broadcasting Caucus co-Chair Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., is confident there’s “no chance” Congress passes an FY 2021 appropriations measure that defunds CPB. Blumenauer, former House Commerce Committee Chairman and current Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., are seeking other House members’ support on draft letter (see 2002250067) urging House Appropriations to increase CPB appropriations to $515 million. “While we deeply appreciate” the $20 million hike approved in FY 2020, “a prior decade of level funding still leaves the program $80 million behind where the [CPB] system was” 10 years ago, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the lawmakers say. Upton and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, also noted during the event their commitment to seeking bipartisan agreement on CPB funding.
A Commerce Department agency plans the first meeting of its Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee this spring, amid delays issuing prospective members security clearances. A Bureau of Industry and Security spokesperson emailed that the agency remains “on target” to have the meeting before summer. Commerce officials originally scheduled the meeting for December, and then January, delaying it each time. ETTAC applicants are impatient, and trade lawyers have heard little information, they said in interviews last week. Adrienne Braumiller, a trade lawyer with Braumiller Law Group and member of BIS’ Regulations and Procedures TAC, has “no clear understanding” of why the process has taken so long, calling it “rather protracted and lengthy.” Doug Jacobson of Jacobson Burton heard about “numerous delays in the process” but hasn't heard why. ETTAC’s “primary focus” will be to identify emerging technologies with dual-use applications, says its charter. Those efforts will inform Commerce restricting sales of emerging technologies, which faced delays (see 1911070026). Commerce has released two sets of controls on emerging technologies without ETTAC input.