State utility commissioners must hone skills to respond to a rapidly changing industry, said new NARUC President Nick Wagner in an interview. NARUC elected the Iowa Utilities Board member at the association’s annual meeting this month in Orlando. State commissioners’ relationships with the FCC and other federal agencies are “absolutely critical,” and there’s “always room for improvement,” said Wagner, referring to calls by some NARUC members to work on states’ rapport with the FCC (see 1811190010).
The FCC should take a flexible approach toward reimbursing low-power TV, translator and FM stations for repacking expenses, said NPR and other broadcasters in docket 18-214 in comments posted through Friday on the proposed catalog of reimbursable expenses for those services. Along with requests for general flexibility, broadcasters listed repacking costs the FCC should cover, such as helicopter costs to reach remote towers and the economic impacts caused by the repacking.
An FCC reassigned-number draft seeking to reduce unwanted robocalls wouldn't directly address some Telephone Consumer Protection Act liability issues -- including a possible industry safe harbor -- though supporters believe it could help limit business callers' legal exposure. A draft order on the tentative agenda for commissioners' Dec. 12 meeting would establish a database of reassigned phone numbers to enable business callers to verify whether a number has been permanently disconnected and thus eligible for reassignment.
The House and Senate Commerce committees are expected to experience changes in their telecom-focused staff in the 116th Congress due to this month's election results, industry officials and lobbyists told us. The election will upend the committees' leadership, ushering in a new Democratic majority in the House and strengthening Republican control of the Senate (see 1811070054 and 1811190045).
Despite high-level consensus from the FTC, consumer groups and industry on the need for stronger agency enforcement authorities, it will be very challenging to reach agreement on specifics for a new data privacy bill, tech interests told us.
A surge in FCC ex parte meetings about access to national outage data in the network outage reporting system (NORS) and disaster information reporting system (DIRS) may foreshadow commission action in the near future, said parties to docket 15-80. States and others seek access, but the telecom industry is raising confidentiality concerns (see 1811060036). Multiple stakeholders that have talked with the FCC said the bureau is asking for input and meetings, but it's not clear what, if anything, Chairman Ajit Pai wants to do on the issue or when. The impetus for those meetings isn't clear, we were told.
The FCC would give rural telcos monthly model-based USF support of $200 per location if they adopt new commitments to build out 25/3 Mbps broadband, under a draft order issued Wednesday. It would also seek to firm up support for rate-of-return (RoR) carriers still on legacy support in exchange for increased 25/3 Mbps deployment. The tentative agenda issued for the Dec. 12 commissioners' meeting also includes draft items on a new high-band 5G spectrum auction, a communications market report, a quadrennial review, media modernization, a robocall-related reassigned number database (here) and wireless messaging classification (here), as announced Tuesday by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1811200048).
Major voice service providers gave varying call-authentication implementation plans, noting complexities of instituting an industry framework of protocol standards and network solutions in collaboration among carriers. They responded to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's demand industry adopt a "robust" system to combat illegal caller ID spoofing and launch it by 2019. Filings posted through Tuesday in docket 17-97. Pai asked seven providers that apparently hadn't established "concrete plans" for implementing Shaken/Stir (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) to do so, and sought timelines from seven with plans (see 1811050055).
That the fight over license size in the 3.5 GHz band is over didn't stop a skirmish at an FCBA CLE that ran through Monday evening. Verizon Assistant Vice President-Federal Regulatory Patrick Welsh said it's disingenuous for General Electric and other massive companies to imply they lack resources to compete with national wireless carriers in a 3.5 GHz auction.
The FCC plans to launch a 2018 quadrennial review, classify wireless messaging as an information service, pave the way for a new high-band 5G auction, and provide rural telcos with new USF support in exchange for more deployment of 25/3 Mbps broadband, at the Dec. 12 commissioners' meeting. It's targeting votes on items to create a reassigned phone number database to help against unwanted robocalling, further "modernize" broadcast rules and issue a communications market report. The wireless messaging (including short message service or SMS) and auction items weren't among those previously expected (see 1811190047), with the first item now getting criticism.