The FBI isn’t “in the business” of moderating social media content or forcing companies to limit speech, Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
Country of origin cases
Communications Workers of America elect Claude Cummings, CWA vice president District 6 and ex-AT&T, as president, and Ameenah Salaam, assistant-CWA international president, as secretary-treasurer … Dish names Eben Albertyn, ex-VodafoneZiggo, executive vice president-chief technology officer, joining in September to replace Dave Mayo and Marc Rouanne (see 2307110056); Mayo, executive vice president-network development, retires, transitioning to strategic advisor, and Rouanne, executive vice president-chief network officer, becomes executive vice president-global partnerships; Dish also promotes Satish Sharma to executive vice president-network deployment.
The FCC appears unlikely to grant T-Mobile special temporary authority to launch service in the markets where it won licenses in last year’s 2.5 GHz auction, which ended almost a year ago. The agency declined to award the licenses, or grant a STA, after its auction authority expired earlier this year (see 2304260058).
Industry groups supported a March petition by the Competitive Carriers Association seeking tweaks to the FCC’s 911 outage reporting rules, approved 4-0 by commissioners last year (see 2211170051). APCO and the Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority (BRETSA) opposed the petition in the initial comment round (see 2306270045). But most groups waited for the reply round to weigh in.
Support continued in comments from industry groups on the use of third-party caller ID authentication and other efforts to address Stir/Shaken implementation (see 2306060073). Some urged the FCC to clarify which levels of attestation should be allowed for authenticating calls. Reply comments were posted through Thursday in docket 17-97.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved a telecom industry pact on intrastate access charges Friday. The Alaska Exchange Carrier Association, AT&T and GCI filed a petition in January asking the RCA to accept their stipulation on rates for July 1 through June 30, and then July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025 (see 2301100049). The parties agreed all the rates except originating non-toll-free local switching and information surcharge rate elements will remain the same as 2022 stipulated rates, said the RCA order in docket U-23-001. “We find that the public interest does not require continuation of this proceeding."
Public safety answering points continued to have a 30% increase in call volume in June, apparently tied to interface updates to some Android phones (see 2306210030), the National Emergency Number Association said. “NENA staff has been working with Google and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) regarding a recent and large uptick in accidental calls caused by changes to default behavior in some devices for the Emergency SOS feature in Android,” the group said last week. Android operating system software from both Google and the OEMs have updates to address the issue, NENA said: “For multiple major OEMs, the updates have already been pushed to the public and installed on many devices. It will take some time for updates to reach a critical mass of handsets, and for users to install them, for the issue to be completely addressed. This may take weeks to months. NENA advises all Android users to update their OS to the latest version.”
A draft FCC order would update several E-rate rules to ensure tribal colleges and university libraries are eligible to receive program support, according to a draft released Thursday (see 2306280064) for consideration during the commissioners' July 20 open meeting. The agency in its draft 988 outage reporting order defended the reporting requirement as requiring nominal action, requiring only clicking on a checkbox in its national outage reporting system (NORS) to indicate if a reported outage potentially affects a 988 facility.
ATIS supported a March petition by the Competitive Carriers Association seeking tweaks to the FCC’s 911 outage reporting rules, approved 4-0 by commissioners last year (see 2211170051). Comments were due Monday in docket 15-80 (see 2306140057). ATIS’ Network Reliability Steering Committee “believes that it is infeasible to comply with the recently-adopted reporting rules” requiring carriers to provide 911 special facilities with all available material information they have about an outage within 30 minutes of discovery, said a filing posted Tuesday. “Until there is notification from a third-party (such as from a vendor or another service provider etc.), originating service providers would not know of an outage or its impact,” ATIS said: “Even after an originating service provider receives notification of an outage, 30 minutes is a challenging deadline. … In this very short window of time, providers likely will not know the root cause, the outage’s extent, or be able to estimate when service would be restored, and in some cases may not be able to identify the affected” public safety answering points. The Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority opposed the petition. “If providers are unwilling or unable to monitor their systems and traffic, and timely report outages, then they should authorize or assign third-party network providers on which their services are dependent to provide outage notifications, and supply those third-party network providers the information they need to fully report the impact of the outage,” the Colorado agency said. APCO also opposed the reconsideration petition (see 2306260062).
APCO urged the FCC to reject a March petition by the Competitive Carriers Association seeking tweaks to the FCC’s outage reporting rules, approved 4-0 by commissioners last year (see 2211170051). Comments were due Monday (see 2306140057). “Specifically, APCO opposes CCA’s request that the Commission reconsider certain aspects of the 30-minute deadline for originating service providers (OSPs) to make initial notifications to emergency communications centers (ECCs) of outages impacting 9-1-1 service,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 15-80. “CCA’s concerns have been fully considered and rejected” by the FCC “and its Petition fails to present any material error, omission, or reason warranting reconsideration.”