FCC Advances Updated Number Authorization and LPTV Rules on Unanimous Votes

The FCC made some changes to the robocall order regarding state laws and requirements, in response to requests from Commissioner Olivia Trusty, Wireline Bureau Chief Joseph Calascione told reporters. The agency addressed complaints that language in the FNPRM says it has taken enforcement action “against bad actors” and cites a notice of apparent liability against Telnyx. The changes clarify that a notice of apparent liability isn’t “a final adjudication,” Calascione said.

Carr argued that the FCC has gotten more aggressive on robocalls since he became chair. “We are taking a new approach to combating illegal robocalls,” he said. “Instead of playing a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole where new problems and new bad actors pop up, we are tackling the problem at every point of the call path.”

The commission is making it harder to “run their schemes,” Carr said. “If bad actors can’t get phone numbers, it’s a lot harder to generate illegal robocalls.” The latest action builds on an order approved last year (see 2309210055).

With the robocall item, the FCC is working on one of its “core missions of protecting consumers by strengthening safeguards against harmful and illegal robocalls,” said Commissioner Anna Gomez. The “bipartisan” order “helps close gaps that bad actors have exploited for too long.”

Consumers usually don’t think about telephone numbers today, Trusty said. “You save the number to your contacts” and “never revisit it.” When an unfamiliar number pops up, many let their phones ring or go to voicemail, she said. “Even in an age of apps and digital platforms, traditional telephone numbers still remain a fundamental part of how we stay connected, provided we have the right policies in place.”

LPTV and Translators

The FCC also unanimously approved an order updating numerous rules governing low-power TV and translator stations.

“Despite the many changes in broadcasting over the last 40 years, our LPTV service rules have not been updated to keep pace with industry realities or to address regulatory uncertainties where they exist,” Carr said. “That changes today.”

Revising the LPTV rules “for clarity to eliminate confusion will simplify and improve processes for broadcasters and for commission staff,” Gomez said. Trusty added, “It is essential that we continually assess and update our rules to reflect today’s marketplace and technological realities.”

The order updates the relocation rules for LPTV stations and clarifies that channel-sharing LPTV stations that lose their sharing partner qualify as displaced stations. It also requires new LPTV stations to use a call sign that matches their service designation and clarifies LPTV alerting equipment requirements, among other things. The updated rules were broadly supported by LPTV broadcasters, in part because the draft didn’t include proposals from a 2024 NPRM on extending public file requirements to LPTV stations (see 2512160054). The draft version of the item drew little ex parte traffic, and the final version is little changed from the draft, FCC staff told us.

Sharpening the Ax

Carr said that with the December DFR, the agency has cumulatively eliminated or teed up for deletion more than 1,100 rules and requirements.

“2025 is just the beginning,” with the FCC “taking bigger swipes” at deregulation next year, Carr said. He has said the agency will focus on “targeted individual proceedings” aimed at “more substantive” items than the FCC’s DFR orders have been (see 2512030058).

Gomez concurred in part and dissented in part on the item, raising concerns with the agency’s DFR process. She raised similar concerns, and voted similarly, on past DFR items.

Thursday’s order covered such issues as analog cable receiver regulation and technical requirements for the NTSC analog TV standard, which has long been phased out.

Public Interest Standard

Carr said in a news conference that the agency’s public interest standard is already clearly defined and that he won’t eliminate its news distortion policy after recent criticism from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Asked if the FCC would hold a proceeding on clarifying the public interest standard, Carr said it's already “fleshed out and spelled out” in “case after case.”

That represents a shift for Carr, who in the past has said the agency could hold such a proceeding (see 2412060067), though he hinted that he believes it's unnecessary (see 2510030045). “I think that the public interest standard has been fleshed out by the agency for 50 or 60 years,” Carr said Thursday.

He also repeated a proposal he has advanced in the past (see 2510230050), suggesting that if broadcasters don’t like following the public interest standard, the agency could seek to auction off their spectrum and allow them to repurchase it without their broadcast obligations. But if Congress took action to eliminate the standard, the FCC would follow its direction, he said.

Carr similarly said he won’t eliminate the agency's news distortion policy. He also reiterated his stance that the FCC isn’t an independent agency because its commissioners don’t have for-cause removal protections (see 2512170067).

In her own news conference, Gomez again said the agency should open a proceeding on defining the public interest, because “we seem to be broadening it beyond what is in our books.” The FCC “investigations we've seen, the attacks that we've seen, the complaints we’ve seen -- none of them raise a valid complaint under our rules.”