GAO made recommendations to several federal agencies on phony public comments, but the FCC wasn’t one of them, despite alleged issues with the agency’s 2017 net neutrality NPRM. GAO scrutinized the comment filing systems of the FCC and nine other agencies. It recommended some agencies “more clearly” communicate comment policies and associated identity-gathering information. The FCC received more than 22 million comments through its electronic comment filing system for the NPRM. GAO noted, “Media and others reported that some of the comments submitted to FCC were suspected to have been submitted using false identity information.” GAO said, according to FCC officials, the agency requires the name and mailing address of the commenter or an attorney of record. The commission accepts anonymous comments to comply with Administrative Procedure Act guidelines and to “minimize barriers that could prevent or discourage commenters from participating in the commenting process,” GAO said. It noted the FCC doesn’t collect or “store IP addresses as part of the comment data it collects when a public user ultimately submits a comment.” GAO addressed the issue of when a person claims that a comment was filed under their name without consent. Similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency and the SEC, the FCC directs the complainant to file a new comment to correct the record but doesn’t remove the original comment.

With the Aug. 14 deadline for an FCC recommendation on a three-digit code for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline nearing, the Wireline Bureau is working on the report, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter dated July 19 to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., posted Friday. Pai said before implementation of any recommendation, the agency would initiate a notice and comment proceeding. Pai responded to a Manchin letter dated May 7 asking Pai and Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie how they're trying to increase awareness of the VA crisis line. The FCC North American Numbering Council has recommended expanded use of 211 for the hotline (see 1905080020).

July partial pre-emption of San Francisco's Article 52 open-access rule (see 1907110015) exceeded the FCC authority, and is arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional, San Francisco said (in Pacer) this week in a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals petition for review (docket 19-71832). Thursday, the FCC didn't comment.

Comments by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, on T-Mobile possibly selling some assets to Dish Network as part of buying Sprint, were incorrectly attributed to New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin (see 1907240062).

Apple will buy most of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion in a deal expected to close Q4, said the companies. About 2,200 employees will join Apple, which also gets from Intel intellectual property, equipment and leases. Intel keeps rights to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, IoT devices and autonomous vehicles. The chipmaker exited the 5G smartphone modems business in April, seeing “no clear path to profitability and positive returns" (see 1904170004). It said then it would evaluate opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in non-smartphone products. Thursday's announcement was Intel's first confirmation it would hold onto those other modem businesses. “While the 5G network opportunity meets each of our investment criteria, the 5G smartphone opportunity does not,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan Thursday on the company's previously scheduled Q2 call. The deal with Apple “preserves Intel’s access to critical IP we have developed, and enables us to focus on the more profitable 5G network opportunity, where we are growing and winning share,” he said. Intel shares rose 6.4 percent after hours to $55.50.

A bipartisan group of eight attorneys general including from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida met with Attorney General William Barr Thursday about tech industry competition, aides confirmed. The coalition discussed “real concerns consumers across the country have with big tech companies stifling competition on the internet,” it said in a joint statement: “It was a productive meeting, and we’re considering a range of possible anti-trust actions against such companies.” Aides didn’t say which other states participated. California AG Xavier Becerra didn’t attend, an aide said. DOJ and offices for other state AGs didn’t comment.

The FCC got a handful of comments on an NPRM commissioners approved in June, with a declaratory ruling, on allowing carriers to block unwanted robocalls by default (see 1906060056). Initial comments were due Tuesday in docket 17-59. The Electronic Transactions Association said the FCC should protect legitimate callers, while clamping down on illegal calls. ETA said safe harbor should allow “a good faith caller the opportunity to show compliance at the pleading stage in private litigation in order to achieve early dismissal of claims that lack merit.” Encore Capital Group, a debt management and recovery firm, urged protection for legitimate callers. “As the FCC has recognized, our industry and many other industries still have extremely significant concerns that legitimate, time-sensitive calls to consumers will be improperly blocked by voice service providers,” Encore said. “Mandate specific processes and procedures that voice service providers must take to prevent improper call blocking and, should improper call blocking occur, to expeditiously unblock the calls.” The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable supported the overall approach, seeking tweaks. “Provide some parameters around the ‘reasonable analytics’ the Declaratory Ruling authorizes as the basis for provider opt-out call-blocking programs,” the department said: Providers should be prohibited from customers for call blocking and the FCC should “make the unwanted call information that it acquires available to state commissions.” TransNexus, which sells anti-robocall software, said the FCC should establish a safe harbor for blocking calls that fail authentication. “We expect that most providers will not want to block calls by default. Instead, we find that providers would rather give their customers the choice,” TransNexus commented: “A hospital or health clinic will generally answer all calls no matter what. They do not want to miss calls that might be very important.” NTCA reported on a meeting aides to Chairman Ajit Pai on challenges rural wireline carriers could encounter in implementing secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) technologies, another NPRM focus.

The FCC launched dockets Tuesday on proposals to modernize two systems at the agency, announced by Chairman Ajit Pai Monday (see 1907220028). The Wireless Bureau created docket 19-212 on fully transitioning the universal licensing system to electronic filing. The Enforcement Bureau established docket 19-214, on the procedural streamlining of administrative hearings.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai furthered his move to modernize systems at the agency with two changes unveiled Monday. Pai proposed that the FCC “fully” transition its universal licensing system, the agency’s largest licensing system, from paper to electronic. Pai also proposed the FCC expand its use of written hearings -- hearings conducted without live testimony. “As the communications marketplace is being transformed by the digital revolution, we must continue to modernize our own operations,” Pai said. “By transitioning more records and communications from paper to electronic format, we can save money and increase our efficiency. And by streamlining our hearing rules, we can resolve disputes more quickly, which will benefit the private sector as well as the Commission.” Both changes require a commissioner vote.

A consortium of telecom experts asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hear oral argument in Irregulators v. FCC, which petitions for review of an FCC order that extended the freeze on rules allocating most regulated telecom costs to intrastate rather than interstate services (see 1812200069), posted Monday as case 19-1085 (in Pacer). Bruce Kushnick, executive director of New Networks Institute, represents the petitioners including the Irregulators, an independent consortium of telecom attorneys, analysts and auditors, including former FCC senior staffers. The petitioners said the FCC's current methodology over-allocates costs to intrastate communications, leading to higher intrastate retail consumer prices for basic local phone service, and leads also to an under-allocation of costs to interstate service. The agency looked only at "perceived burdens" on industry, the petitioners argue in the filing; "consumers' interests and benefits were barely mentioned or included in the 'costs and benefits' analysis performed by the FCC."