FCC information collection under revised discontinuance rules was approved by the Office of Management and Budget for three years, said an announcement in Monday's Federal Register. The rule said disclosure requirements in a November wireline infrastructure order aim to help implement parts of Communications Act sections 222(e) and 251, and to eliminate telecom market operational barriers, especially to copper retirements and service upgrades (see 1711160032). The information will be used to implement LECs' duties to give competitors dialing parity and nondiscriminatory access to certain services and functionalities, ILECs' duty to disclose network information, and numbering information, the rule said. Another FCC rule prepared for Tuesday's FR says OMB approved for three years information collection associated with a commission order "updating, clarifying and streamlining its rules on non-geostationary satellite orbit, fixed satellite service systems to better reflect current technology and promote additional operational flexibility." It said related rule changes under the September order (see 1709260035) take effect May 31.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai accepted the call authentication recommendations of the North American Numbering Council for industry to "quickly establish a Governance Authority for implementing" a Shaken/Stir framework, said a release Monday. It said Shaken/Stir (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) is an industry standard for "cryptographic signing" of phone calls aimed at eliminating "illegitimate spoofed numbers" used by illegal robocallers and spoofers. "A critical element of solving this problem is call authentication," said Pai, saying it will give robocall-weary consumers more confidence to answer calls. "Call authentication can help law enforcement catch scammers and help carriers identify illegal calls." The May NANC report recommended industry take the lead in standing up a governance authority and policy administrator of the framework over the next year (see 1805030014). It anticipates "certain providers could be capable of signing and validating" Shaken/Stir calls in a year, said the FCC release. NANC members, who declined to set a Shaken/Stir adoption deadline for providers, said the standard works for VoIP calls, not legacy services (see 1804270027).

An FCC order and NPRM targeting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for enhanced USF support could be released in the next few days, said a commission official. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly recently said he will support the item, after receiving assurances from Puerto Rico it will end 911 fee diversion (see 1805040034). Chairman Ajit Pai's draft seeks to provide $256 million in additional USF support and repurpose another $698 million to help restore and upgrade hurricane-damaged communications networks, with $750 million for Puerto Rico and $204 million for the U.S. Virgin Islands (see 1803060039).

Census tracts are likely to be a battleground in licensing the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band, with the CBRS Coalition proposal explicitly including census tract licenses (see 1805100062), experts and insiders told us Friday. A rival plan from CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association involves county-based and metropolitan statistical area licenses (see 1804230064). CTIA and CCA didn't comment Friday. The CBRS Coalition proposal contains a mix of licensing areas for everyone, emailed Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. "That is what a compromise is," he said. "It means everyone gets something." Parties who don't think census tracts are usable "don't have to bid on them," he said. That the CBRS Coalition is made up of interests ranging from small mobile carriers to electric co-ops points to the difficulty of getting them all on the same page, so the coalition's proposal was its bottom line, not a starting point for talks, said a Coalition member executive. The FCC might be able to come up with a third position, but that seems unlikely, the executive said, saying it's also unlikely CTIA and CCA can or will modify their position.

The vote at Thursday's FCC meeting on fining a robocaller was 3-1 with the dissent partial (see 1805100062 and 1805100057).

The FCC could consider a wireline infrastructure item at its June 7 monthly meeting, said commission officials Friday. The potential item appears to be an order on copper retirement and telecom service discontinuance, said one official and an informed source. A November Further NPRM accompanying an order sought comment on possible streamlining of copper retirement notifications and telecom service discontinuance approvals, and certain pole-attachment processes, including "overlashing" (see 1711160032). Commenters were divided (see 1801180032). "It doesn't seem like the pole-attachment piece is entirely baked yet," said an official. Also seen as possibilities are items on intercarrier compensation, toll-free texting, slamming and cramming, spectrum frontiers, wireless emergency alert testing and media modernization. The tentative agenda and draft items are due to be released Thursday, but Chairman Ajit Pai sometimes has announced the items the day before those are released. A spokesman declined comment Friday.

A May 15 roundtable on best practices for preventing false emergency alerts will include opening remarks from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and discussions on emergency alerting training and partnerships between emergency alerting stakeholders, said a Public Safety Bureau public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. Scheduled speakers include Ryan Hirae of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and Chris Leonard of the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters. The roundtable is part of the bureau’s response to the January false missile alert in Hawaii. The discussions will include participants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, trade associations and state emergency entities, the PN said.

In an address that drew parallels between the civil rights movement and telecommunications policy, Mignon Clyburn in her final speech Wednesday as an FCC commissioner said communications networks should be "totally free of discrimination" and that not extending them to rural areas or low-income urban areas is "antithetical to our values." She urged reinstitution of Title II regulation of the internet, saying the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules were "based on well-reasoned and time-tested common carriage principles," especially since broadband is "on par with" water, electricity and telephones as a component of critical national infrastructure. She said the "broken inmate calling regime" is "as close as it gets" to evil. She said inmate calling isn't just a financial issue but touches on problems of mass incarceration, and seeking change goes hand in hand with promoting rehabilitation and reducing recidivism, she said. Clyburn also said the momentum is in the wrong direction in recent years on media consolidation and diversity. The response, she said, is, "We fight harder. We shout louder. We escalate." A lot of what the FCC does is technical and not followed by the public, but "it is a doorway to larger battles of equity taking place across this country," Clyburn said. The speech at Washington's First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) was sponsored by organizations including Common Cause, Color of Change, National Hispanic Media Coalition and the UCC Office of Communication. Among those in attendance were Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, former Commissioner Michael Copps; Free Press President Craig Aaron; Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman; and Clyburn's father, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

The FCC and other agencies must improve public comment processes being undermined by mass fake submissions and stolen identities, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at a New America event Wednesday. The net neutrality proceeding had half a million comments from Russian email addresses, almost 8 million nearly identical comments from email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com and a million comments "using mail merge techniques designed to falsely make them appear like unique submissions," she said, according to written remarks. "Fake comments and stolen identities are pouring into proceedings across Washington." The FCC's "internet systems are ill-equipped to handle the mass automation and fraud that already is corrupting channels for public comment," she said. "It’s only going to get worse. The mechanization and weaponization of the comment-filing process has only just begun. We need to do something." She said the FCC failed to work with state authorities that found residents had their identities stolen. "We should be asking how did this happen? Who orchestrated it? Who paid for it? We should be investigating -- and the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation should be involved," she said. "Every agency should consider simple security measures -- like CAPTCHA or two-factor authentication -- that can enhance security without decreasing public participation."

Broadband deployment gains are occurring, with coordination, mapping and sustainability critical ongoing issues, speakers said on a National Regulatory Research webinar Wednesday. "We're seeing a lot of positive progress," said Danna Mackenzie, executive director-Minnesota Office of Broadband Development. The state is more than 90 percent of the way to bringing 25/3 Mbps broadband "border to border," she said. "There's a lot of progress," agreed Joe Tiernan of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable, Competition Division. He said about two-thirds of unserved housing units are being targeted for broadband deployment by industry, backed by state and local authorities, or being examined for municipal projects. NTCA Senior Vice President Mike Romano said almost 90 percent of his members' customers have 10/1 Mbps available and two-thirds have 25/3 Mbps available, but deploying to the remaining unserved areas gets harder due to low density and high costs: "We've got a big job left." He said key is to keep "chipping away" and putting resources where needed. Romano said Rural Utilities Service loan and grant programs, FCC USF mechanisms and state initiatives help broadband providers deploy, but the "biggest challenge" is making sure everybody knows what others are doing. Close coordination among agencies is needed to ensure multiple networks aren't funded in areas where the economics don't allow even one, he said. Romano and others said improving broadband mapping is another key. Steven Rosenberg, FCC Wireline Bureau chief data officer, provided an overview of the commission's interactive broadband map for fixed service, which is based on Form 477 data submitted by industry. He expects the map to be updated in "coming weeks" to incorporate June 30, 2017, data that is still being vetted. The FCC is waiting for one large ISP to "clean up" submissions, he said. Romano said the 477 census block data is a "good starting point" for mapping efforts. More granular data can be provided through geolocating and geocoding, but that can increase costs and burdens, so balance is needed. It gets even trickier to synthesize the data into a map with multiple providers, Rosenberg said. Romano said there will continue to be a need for "challenge processes" to dispute claims an area is served or unserved. Deployment is just one piece, as networks have to be maintained and upgraded, he said. "These networks aren't self-sustaining. ... Sustainability is a big piece."