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."
The FCC is collecting data from eligible telecom carriers on whether they use equipment or services from Huawei or ZTE, said a public notice Wednesday for docket 18-89. An agency rule bars USF funds for equipment posing a national security threat to the telecom supply chain (see 2002040047). Data includes the type of Huawei or ZTE equipment or services ETCs own or use, purchase and installation costs, and removal and replacement costs. The FCC has proposed reimbursing small rural carriers (see 1906270039). Carriers not designated ETCs may also file, the agency said. Filings are due by April 22. Senate Commerce plans a March 4 hearing on 5G supply chain security (see 2002260028). Three Democratic presidential candidates said in Tuesday night's debate they wouldn't allow Chinese firms to build critical U.S. infrastructure (see 2002260019).
Power loss continues to play a role in cellular network outages in Puerto Rico, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said Wednesday, after his Friday hearing there. "During the recent earthquakes, the overwhelming majority of cell-site outages resulted from power loss, not damage to facilities," he said, calling power loss a long-term challenge. He visited one facility that's running on a generator more than two years after a hurricane destroyed its power lines. He said stakeholders are exploring expanded coordination agreements with power utilities, plus alternative energy sources. "At the federal level, we urgently need to consider new rules and legislation to ensure access to power," he said. Starks said ending internet inequality in Puerto Rico requires "sustained commitment and significant resources." He said closing the digital divide could allow telehealth to give Puerto Ricans better access to mental healthcare. Starks posted prepared statements from Friday's witnesses. Puerto Rico Telephone Co. General Counsel Francisco Silva in separate discussions with Starks recounted Wednesday in docket 18-143 called "inconsistent" the frameworks the commission adopted for determining location adjustments in the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Silva said FCC rules penalize support recipients in Puerto Rico "when location data used to establish milestones overstates the number of locations in an area, even though the challenges associated with accurately assessing location data acknowledged in the RDOF proceeding are even more acute in Puerto Rico" (see 2002200021).
DOD is “willing to share” use of its spectrum with wireless carriers in some cases, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. The committee was examining DOD’s $705 billion FY 2021 budget proposal. “A lot of U.S. companies want to go to the mid-band range" of spectrum for their rollouts of 5G technology, Esper said. "The private sector wants that. We need” those frequencies. “The technology exists, I’m told, to” share spectrum that DOD currently occupies, he said. “That’s the best way to move forward so we can meet the economic priority with the national security priority.” Esper noted Pentagon use of the 3100-3350 MHz band. NTIA in January called for further study, saying federal agencies may be able to share that band (see 2001270049). DOD has objections to Ligado's L-band license modification applications (see 1911210055).
The FCC Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council meets March 17, said Tuesday's Federal Register. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room. The first major documents from this iteration of CSRIC are due at the meeting (see 1912100053). In December, CSRIC got updates.
The consortium selected to manage industry efforts to trace illegal robocalls to comply with the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act "should enable the participation of a diverse range of voice service providers in the tracebacks that it conducts and allow the participation of any and all providers that are identified in the call path of a traceback," USTelecom told the FCC. Comments were posted through Tuesday in docket 20-22. The agency opened a rulemaking this month (see 2002060038). NCTA wants the consortium to create an executive committee represented by different industry sectors "given an equal voice in the management." The cable group wants budget transparency if fees are collected. It asked whether a traceback group must be independent from a single association. Incompas wants the FCC to spell out how it will evaluate a registrant's claim of neutrality, and it wants to know what criteria the agency will use to select a single consortium for the private-led traceback efforts. Incompas suggested the North American Numbering Council advise the FCC here. The FCC also got comments this week on technical requirements for a reassigned numbers database (see 2002250062).
Trying to spur rural broadband by removing regulatory oversight of electric cooperatives could have consequences for electric rates, reliability and other consumer protections overseen by the commission, cautioned Maryland Public Service Commission Chairman Jason Stanek at a Senate Finance Committee hearing livestreamed Tuesday from Annapolis. Officially, the commission is neutral on SB-540. Commissioner Anthony O’Donnell urged lawmakers to “think very carefully” about ramifications of removing oversight. Maryland Deputy People’s Counsel William Fields fears deregulation could raise consumers' electric rates. Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D) agrees. The legislation is critical to cleaning up state barriers keeping co-ops from providing broadband service to the eastern shore, said sponsor Sen. Stephen Hershey (R). “If we don’t do this, we have no other options on the table." Rate hikes are less a danger with cooperatives that are regulated by members, he said. Verizon supports the proposal as good for consumers and competition, and Hershey is working on getting Comcast support, he said. The bill would immediately support Choptank Electric Cooperative’s broadband business model, said Hershey and co-op officials. Choptank would be able to start rolling out service in Q1 2021, and within 10 years cover Maryland’s entire eastern shore with gigabit fiber service, testified CEO Mike Malandro. Comcast supported SB-790 at the hearing. It would direct the Department of Information Technology to waive resource sharing agreement fees for last-mile broadband projects in unserved areas and exempt private entities from DoIT project reviews if they have a separate right to access to install communications lines and facilities in the right of way. DoIT last summer misinterpreted a 1996 law and started to charge resource-sharing fees to ISPs, said Comcast Vice President-State Government Sean Looney. That stopped work by Comcast, Verizon and others in the right of way for eight months, he said.
The National Emergency Number Association warned floor-level data could be hard to obtain, in response to a Further NPRM on advanced vertical location, mapping and 911 services. Comments were due last week and posted through Monday in docket 07-114. “Lack of accurate, reliable floor level records represents a fundamental challenge to vertical location in the public safety setting,” the group said: “NENA has spoken with numerous participants in the real estate and indoor location industry; all agree that tax assessment records -- the most common and widely used ‘first pass’ source of building floor levels -- are roughly only 50% reliable, and nearly always require validation via another surveying method. In many jurisdictions, tax assessment records require merely square footage numbers for taxation purposes, so floor level data fields are often either left blank or inaccurately populated.” Be “mindful of the unique challenges facing rural carriers in deploying these technologies,” the Competitive Carriers Association asked. Google said the FCC should change its rules to “promote rather than discourage delivery of floor data to public safety answering points, and also encourage the use of testing protocols that account for real-world operating conditions and concerns.” T-Mobile advised flexibility. “We should not repeat the mistakes of the past, as with the initial deployments of horizontal 911 location solutions that relied on technology developed and implemented specifically for 911,” the carrier said: “Those solutions became obsolete and resulted in public safety being left behind, even as location technologies developed for the commercial market continued to develop and improve.”
The Benton Foundation is now called the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society (see 2002180054).
The California Public Utilities Commission plans to vote April 16 on T-Mobile/Sprint, with a proposed decision coming by March 13, Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer ruled Monday in docket A.18-07-011. The carriers wanted the agency to decide at its March meeting and last week said they could close the deal as early as April 1 (see 2002200066).