Providers of video relay services for the deaf and hearing impaired want the FCC to quickly grant VRS users immediate access to new equipment during a two-week grace period while their eligibility is being verified, as proposed in a Further NPRM released in mid-May. The agency took comments on the matter through Tuesday in docket 10-51. "Granting users access to VRS during the verification period will further the goals of providing functionally equivalent service to deaf and hard of hearing consumers, more akin to how hearing individuals are able to use their new phones nearly immediately," said Convo Communications.

The FCC’s final order implementing new rules to ensure callers to 911 using multiline telephone systems (MLTS) can dial out directly without using a prefix, such as "9," largely tracks a draft proposal, based on a side-by-side comparison. Commissioners approved the rules last week over partial dissents by Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks (see 1908010011). The rules also apply dispatchable location requirements to MLTS, fixed telephone service, VoIP, telecommunications relay services and mobile texting. The order released Friday includes comments by Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, who had reservations about the FCC’s approach. Submissions in the record discussed “the possible unintended consequences of requiring the delivery of outbound-only interconnected VoIP calls to 911,” O’Rielly said. “When such calls have connected to emergency call centers, the calls have been of very short duration, indicating possible misdials or nefarious activity.” The concern was that the FCC could create a problem similar to that with non-service initialized (NSI) phones, unconnected mobile phones that “public safety has recognized are used in a high percentage of fraudulent 911 calls,” he said: “Instead of dismissing these concerns, the Commission should have considered this further, because, as we have learned with NSI phones, once you implement these rules, it is hard to undue them without concerns being raised about the one legitimate call that was could be missed and the legal liability that can result if it is not connected to a call center.” O’Rielly also complained the cost-benefit analysis “primarily discusses what we stated in the Notice, which is mostly based on comparing the potential cost against the benefit of a hypothetical number of lives being saved based on the flawed 'Value of a Statistical Life' metric. Now that the Office of Economic and Analysis is up and running, we must do better.”

Multiple stakeholders are asking the FCC not to phase down Lifeline support for voice services under its USF program. The requests came in comments that were due Wednesday and posted through Thursday. They were in response to a joint petition by CTIA and others and a July 1 public notice in docket 11-42 (see 1907010055).

Both an FCC commissioner and critics of the agency's approval Thursday of a local franchise authority (LFA) order anticipate its being challenged in court. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who along with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel dissented in the 3-2 vote, said he has "no doubt" about litigation. Emailed NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner, "There will be litigation over the final order."

NextNav executives urged the FCC to act on a proposed rule requiring carriers meet a new vertical location (z-axis) accuracy metric for indoor wireless calls to 911. But the company said using the data to determine a floor number of the caller isn’t possible with current technology. “There is no uniformity in the height of each floor level in different buildings and many buildings have unique floor numbering systems (such as skipping the 13th floor) that cannot be taken into consideration absent extensive mapping of every building in a covered area,” NextNav said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau staff: “Regardless of the precision of the vertical location information, the current requirement of a horizontal location fix within 50 meters does not provide sufficient accuracy to reliably place a wireless caller in a particular building.” Commissioners approved a Further NPRM in March (see 1903150067). Among those at the meeting were NextNav Executive Chairman Gary Parsons and CEO Ganesh Pattabiraman, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-114.

Mutliline telephone systems (MLTS) providers and equipment vendors proposed changes in how the FCC implements new laws on better 911 access, in recent ex parte correspondence in docket 18-261. The commissioners are expected to vote Thursday on a draft report and order circulated in mid-July on implementing Ray Baum's Act (see 1902150036) and Kari's Law Act of 2017 (see 1907090047) to provide better location identification to emergency workers who take phone calls from apartment buildings, offices and other multi-unit spaces and to ensure callers who use MLTS phones can reach 911 quickly (see 1812110025).

America’s Communication Association seeks a clarifying footnote on an FCC draft order on direct dialing to 911 (see 1907250037). The draft would require fixed multi-line telephone services to be configured to provide dispatchable location information “automatically” when a user places a 911 call, ACA filed, posted Friday in docket 18-261. A footnote said “the dispatchable location information associated with a fixed MLTS device must be conveyed to the [public safety answering point] when a user places a 911 call, without further intervention by the user at the time it places the call.”

The West Virginia Public Service Commission picked Schumaker and Co. to audit Frontier Communications and Citizens Telecommunications, with work to start as soon as possible and completion within six months. The PSC noted it last month rejected the choice of Frontier (see 1906190037), which also owns Citizens. "After receiving numerous and increasing complaints regarding Frontier’s quality of service, including concerns from emergency services, 911 centers and senior citizens," on Aug. 30, the PSC recounted Thursday, the regulator "ordered a focused management audit of Frontier to be conducted by a qualified outside auditing firm identified through a request for proposals and paid for by Frontier." It'll give both sides "a comprehensive ability to understand and prioritize the challenges facing Frontier." A preliminary summary is due on Day 120, draft report Day 150 and final one on 180, in case 18-0291-T-P. The telco "engaged in good faith in the bid award process as ordered by the PSC and will fully comply fully" with the audit, its spokesperson emailed Friday. "The expectation is that the audit will give the Commission the ability to understand and prioritize challenges. One key problem the Commission and Frontier must resolve together is that while Frontier only serves about ten percent of the 2.26 million telephone lines in West Virginia, Frontier has 100 percent of the obligation to provide traditional telephone voice service to customers in the most rural, remote, and high-cost areas."

Apple wants the FCC to tweak language when members vote on a draft order on direct dialing to 911 when non-fixed interconnected VoIP service is used. Add the words “to call 911” so the order reads: “The service provider must identify whether the service is being used to call 911 from a different location than the Registered Location,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-261. Cisco in the same proceeding said the FCC, if it adopts the order at Thursday's commissioners' meeting, should publicize multi-line telephone system requirements to business organizations. “While nearly all such organizations have members which operate facilities where MLTS is deployed, their members do not typically track Commission actions,” Cisco said.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., again (see 1905150061) criticized the C-Band Alliance's proposal for clearing spectrum in 3.7-4.2 GHz, saying during a Thursday House Commerce Committee hearing it could disrupt the opportunity for using proceeds from sales of the spectrum to pay for rural broadband deployment. Several tech and telecom policy topics came up during Thursday's hearing on the policy priorities of lawmakers who aren't its members. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, urged House Commerce to probe the tech sector's Communications Decency Act Section 230 liability shield and make further CDA changes.