The FCC North American Numbering Council adopted call authentication best-practices, said Friday's Daily Digest. Recommendations include service providers vetting the identities of retail and wholesale customers, originating service providers confirming end-user or customer rights to use a number, and guidelines for originating service providers authenticating calls with A-, B- and C-level attestations.
Country of origin cases
A small-cells bill cleared the South Carolina legislature Thursday and goes to Gov. Henry McMaster (R). The House voted 104-1 to concur with Senate amendments and pass H-4262, preempting local governments. The Senate voted 32-6 for the amended bill Wednesday. The Municipal Association of South Carolina supports the bill, emailed Director-Advocacy Scott Slatton, citing “productive and amiable” talks with AT&T. Amendments reflected the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ August ruling on FCC orders, Slatton said. Legislators broadened the bill’s aesthetic requirements to cover more parts of a city and “removed the ‘no more burdensome’ language that prevented cities from placing more stringent regulations on small cells than other infrastructure in the right-of-way,” he said. McMaster has five days to sign or veto, or it becomes law, Slatton said. The governor didn’t comment by our deadline. Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Jonathan Adelstein noted it's the 30th state to pass a small-cells law. The House originally passed the plan in April 2019; COVID-19 delayed senators' voting (see 2003200042).
Best Buy Purchasing and Best Buy Health “have been adversely affected” by the Section 301 List 3 tariffs on Chinese imports, argued the subsidiaries Monday in a complaint (in Pacer) at the U.S. Court of International Trade. It was among the roughly 3,300 suits filed at the CIT since Thursday to vacate the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs, including 700 on Monday, the last filing day for importers to qualify for refunds if the actions are successful. There was some debate Tuesday whether the Monday deadline could be open to interpretation.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology extended through March 31 a waiver of the push notification requirement for fixed and mode II personal/portable TV white space devices, set to expire Sept. 30, said an order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The original waiver was approved in an August 2015 order on Part 15 rules.
Roku users can now access NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming video. The free tier includes 13,000 hours of current, classic and original movies and shows, plus live and on-demand content covering news, sports, reality, late-night and Spanish-language programming. For $4.99 monthly, Roku customers have access to the full Peacock Premium portfolio of 20,000 hours of content; another $5 zaps advertising, said Peacock Monday. A Roku spokesperson emailed there's no update on talks with AT&T to carry HBO Max, which isn't available on Roku or Amazon Fire TV platforms. Peacock is available on Apple devices, Google platforms and devices, Microsoft’s Xbox One family consoles, Vizio SmartCast TVs, Sony’s PlayStation 4 family consoles and LG Smart TVs. Eligible Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex customers and eligible Cox Contour customers get Peacock Premium for free. In July, Comcast said Peacock had 10 million signups (see 2007300032).
The U.S. Court of International Trade should “set aside” the List 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports as “ultra vires” (“beyond the powers”) of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and order the duties refunded to U.S. importers, said tech companies Dana Innovations, Foster Electric, GN Audio, Scosche Industries and Sharp Electronics in five virtually identical complaints (in Pacer). They were among hundreds filed Thursday and Friday accusing USTR of overstepping Trade Act authority and violating the Administrative Procedure Act. The suits attempt to seize on a potential tariff refund opportunity, if floor-tiling plaintiffs prevail in their case (see 2009110041). The complaints are “timely,” said the dozens of them we studied, under CIT’s residual jurisdiction provision, coming before Monday’s two-year anniversary of USTR’s List 3 Federal Register notice. Though the HMTX case “may be a long-shot, you can never say never,” blogged trade expert Ted Murphy with Sidley Austin. “If you want to preserve your right to a refund, in case the flooring companies’ action is successful, you need to put a case on file at the CIT.” Scosche suffered “an actual, imminent injury that is fairly traceable to the implementation, administration, and enforcement of List 3 and/or List 4,” said the car audio supplier. The harms “can be redressed by a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction” ruling USTR’s actions unlawful under the Trade Act and “arbitrary and capricious” under the APA, said Scosche. Akin Gump filed the original suit for HMTX using as a template the complaint it drafted for CTA two years ago. Other lawyers modeled their actions after that. USTR didn't comment.
The FCC has power to regulate social media, and the First Amendment supports the Trump administration’s petition for rulemaking, NTIA replied Friday (see 2009020064). The commission can require disclosure of information services under the Communications Act, and courts have ruled “search engines, browsers and internet social media precursors such as chat rooms are information services,” wrote acting Director Adam Candeub. He asked to grant its petition for Communications Decency Act Section 230 rulemaking.
The FCC Wireline Bureau extended a waiver of access stimulation rules through Dec.1 for CLEC Inteliquent, said an order Thursday. COVID-19 caused a continued increase in traffic for conference-calling services Zoom and Cisco WebEx, which are Inteliquent customers, the order said. The bureau previously extended the waiver in June to Sept.1 (see 2006230015) but denied Inteliquent’s request to set the deadline to March, “given the ongoing uncertainty about how long the pandemic will continue to impact Inteliquent and its customers.” Granting Inteliquent’s waiver “in increments of three months has proven to be a workable and effective timeframe by which to closely monitor the effects of the pandemic on Inteliquent’s terminating-to-originating traffic ratios,” the order said.
More than a dozen classifications of tech goods from China eligible for "preferential" tariff treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade remain subject to applicable Trade Act Section 301 tariffs, Customs and Border Protection ruled. It's dated last Friday and was released by CBP this week. "The country of origin of the subject goods for purposes of Section 301 is China and therefore, subject to the Section 301 duties," said CBP. The goods include hard drives, modems, switchers, routers and power supplies.
Spotify sees its integration of podcasts and audio as a differentiator as the company looks to stave off competition from Apple’s bundled service package, announced Tuesday (see 2009150060), and Amazon’s entry into podcasts Wednesday.