Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

The FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee will have new life after it finalizes the last of its reports to the commission. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stopped by the meeting Friday to announce a new focus -- how to make communications infrastructure more resilient, with hurricane season looming and after major storms hit the Gulf Coast and U.S. territories last year. Pai asked BDAC to complete the report by February.

States joined local government officials sounding the alarm over an FCC plan to ban state and local moratoriums on new wireless and wireline facilities (see 1807240035 and 1807130045). The draft order also includes one-touch, make-ready rules and is set for vote at next Thursday’s commissioners' meeting. States’ interest in pole attachments is increasing as they look to spur broadband, state commissioners said in interviews. Pennsylvania sees a need to take a stronger role in pole attachment disputes as part of that effort, said Public Utility Commission member Norman Kennard.

Key Republicans backed and Democrats attacked deregulatory FCC policies under Chairman Ajit Pai at a House Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing Wednesday. GOP leaders lauded commission actions to improve emergency communications, update media regulations and promote broadband deployment. Democrats blasted the agency's net neutrality rollback and other deregulatory moves as favoring big industry players and even complicating national security. Pai and other commissioners had provided prepared testimony (see 1807240056).

Commenters offered mixed views on actions and proposals to fight unwanted robocalling, as comments were posted Friday and Monday in docket 17-59 on an FCC public notice soliciting input for an upcoming staff report in consultation with FTC. There is no "silver bullet," so "efforts continue to move forward across multiple fronts," including "increasing deployment of various tools to consumers, advancing efforts with respect to the deployment of SHAKEN [Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs] and STIR [Secure Telephone Identify Revisited], as well as the Commission’s expansion of carriers’ ability to block illegal robocalls," said USTelecom, citing "marked strides" in the areas. "Industry and the FCC are aggressively working to mitigate illegal robocalling," said CTIA: "Efforts are promising, but with so much going on, it is premature to try to measure the effectiveness." Comcast said "significant progress has been made on various fronts," with "further important efforts" ongoing. "Despite ongoing progress by industry in formulating best practices and bringing call blocking technologies to market, illegal robocalls remain a significant concern," said the Professional Association for Customer Engagement. PACE urged the FCC to continue to engage with "industry organizations, such as the Communication Protection Coalition, that seek to implement best practices" and to promote "implementation of the SHAKEN/STIR framework." It called on industry and the FCC to "ensure that the telephone network remains available to legal callers and that legal callers are provided an opportunity to challenge erroneous blocking/labeling." The American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management backed FCC efforts "to protect consumers from illegal robocalls by bad actors. Consumers Union, the National Consumer Law Center and Consumer Federation of America warned "against narrowly focusing on scam robocalls exclusively," saying "the FCC and FTC should solicit data to assess the scope of the entire robocall problem, from phone companies, callers, and call-mitigation services." Others commenting: The American Cable Association, AmeriFactors Financial Group, AT&T, ATIS, First Orion, Neustar, Noble Systems, Sprint, TNS, TransNexus and Verizon.

Pirate radio operators should watch out because the FCC will stop you, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council conference Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr also spoke at the conference on a panel with O'Reilly, taking questions from former Chairman Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Application programming interfaces must be included in the Lifeline national verifier so carriers can help low-income fund recipients with enrollment, said a NARUC resolution passed Wednesday. NARUC cleared that and other resolutions on separations, IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) and precision agriculture (see 1807030052). NARUC is following the national verifier closely, with the API resolution setting up a big push planned for Lifeline Awareness Week this September, a spokesperson said.

Expect the House Digital Commerce Subcommittee's Wednesday hearing to focus on whether the FTC has proper authority to protect consumers’ digital privacy (see 1807110060), members told us. “I want to see more authority given to the Federal Trade Commission,” said ranking member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. “Unfortunately, they don’t have the authorities that are needed in order to provide the kind of data security that we need. I think it’s the appropriate agency to do it, but presently they don’t have the capacity.”

A Tuesday House Communications Subcommittee hearing to re-examine proposals to improve rural broadband deployments appears aimed in part at looking at what lawmakers can do in the next Congress given the limited legislative work time left this year, communications sector officials and lobbyists said in interviews. House Communications aimed to revisit the broadband proposals after recent FCC and congressional efforts (see 1807130065). A House Commerce Committee GOP staff memo notes language from several bills House Communications reviewed in January made it into the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum legislative package (HR-4986), which President Donald Trump signed into law as part of the $1.3 trillion FY 2018 omnibus spending bill (HR-1625). House Commerce also cleared other broadband legislation recently (see 1803230038 and 1807120063).

The FCC drew mixed responses from local government officials Friday to a draft order combining one-touch, make-ready rules with a ban on state and local moratoriums on new wireless and wireline facilities. A Nashville official lauded the agency for validating the Tennessee city’s overturned OTMR policy, but NATOA slammed the FCC’s proposed moratoriums ban. Local government attorneys warned it could lead to litigation.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed rules providing a new framework for “the vast majority” of pole attachments under federal jurisdiction by imposing a one-touch, make-ready” (OTMR) regime. An accompanying declaratory ruling attacks local or state moratoriums on new wireless and wireline facilities. The order and declaratory ruling are set for a vote at commissioners’ Aug. 2 meeting (see 1807110053) along with items on broadcast incubators, repacking reimbursement, a telehealth item and a spectrum/5G auction-related action.