The FCC’s draft order that would create an additional alert code for missing and endangered adults will gain unanimous approval during Wednesday’s open meeting, agency officials told us. The item received widespread support from alerting officials, industry trade associations and indigenous groups. The final order is expected to have changed little from the draft version, an FCC official said. While the new alert code will be used for any missing person older than 17 with special needs and circumstances or who is endangered, abducted or kidnapped, it's aimed at addressing the rising problem of missing and murdered indigenous people, the FCC has said. Speaking at an indigenous women’s event Wednesday, Rosenworcel said the item will gain approval and credited Native groups for the proposal. “The action the FCC is taking next week is in direct response to a call sent out by Native communities after enduring a crisis of the missing for far too long,” she said. The code will be “a really powerful tool," said Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media (NPM) and an advocate of the new code.
The full FCC approved a $2.3 million forfeiture against Bronx, New York, pirate radio broadcaster Johnny Peralta, an order released Thursday said. Peralta was operating the pirate station La Mia Radio for years. The Enforcement Bureau initially contacted him in 2018. EB agents have noted La Mia Radio’s continued unauthorized broadcasts ever since, according to a notice of apparent liability in November. Peralta didn’t respond to the NAL, the FCC said. The forfeiture is the maximum allowed under law. “Some of the most egregious pirate radio operations are run by individuals who have ignored prior enforcement actions by the Commission,” the forfeiture order said. “As such, it merits the strongest possible enforcement measures to the fullest extent of the law.” The FCC lacks the power to enforce collecting fines, especially from non-licensees. Only DOJ can bring delinquent forfeiture subjects to court, but broadcasters have told us that the high fine amounts like Peralta’s are expected to make pursuing collection more worthwhile for prosecutors. Peralta couldn’t be reached for comment. The forfeiture order was originally part of the agenda for Wednesday's FCC meeting, though it was listed only as an Enforcement Bureau item, as is typical for enforcement actions. A deletion notice was released late Thursday.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau wants comments by Sept. 3, replies Sept. 16, in docket 03-123 on a petition from accessibility organizations regarding IP-captioned telephone service. TDIforAccess, the National Association of the Deaf and Hearing Loss Association of America sought a reversal of a previous FCC decision letting IP CTS providers "rely exclusively on automatic speech recognition" (see 2406030062). The groups also asked that the FCC require all IP CTS providers give users the option at any point during their call to have a communications assistant generate captions.
Representatives of Incompas and the Cloud Communications Alliance urged the FCC to restructure an NPRM as a notice of inquiry. The NPRM considers consumer protection against AI-generated robocalls. The draft doesn’t “identify or propose any specific technology, making it virtually impossible to meaningfully weigh costs and benefits,” the groups said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-363: If, based on comments received, the FCC "commits to specific implementation requirements in a subsequent Report and Order, the two-week window for comment on a public draft would provide industry with insufficient time to respond to detailed proposals or to weigh the costs and obligations associated with deploying AI technologies in their voice service networks.” In addition, the groups said they discussed the importance of IP interconnection to the success of FCC-adopted robocall mitigation and call authentication efforts. The associations met with aides to the five commissioners and staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs and Wireline bureaus. Commissioners will vote on it Wednesday (see 2407170055).
Mobile & Wireless Forum (MWF) representatives met with FCC Wireless Bureau staff to discuss e-labeling for hearing-aid compatible phones. MWF considers the limitations in FCC rules “overbroad" and requested a discussion about the issue, a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-388 said. Especially post-COVID-19, “QR codes have become ubiquitous,” the group said: “Their use on packaging to present complicated information that calls for more explanation than there may be space for on physical packaging makes eminent sense.” MWF said e-labeling should be permitted for HAC devices and QR code usage for packaging.
North East Offshore is dropping its request for an FCC waiver of the freeze on nonfederal applications for new or expanded Part 90 operations in the lower 3 GHz band. The renewable energy company notified the agency that it’s modifying its application to “specify frequencies outside the 3.1-3.3 GHz band, which will eliminate the need” for the FCC to consider a waiver. The request ran into opposition from the wireless and cable industries, which filed comments posted Thursday in docket 24-212. The comments underscore the perceived importance of lower 3 GHz spectrum for 5G and beyond.
The FCC's budget for the Lifeline program for calendar year 2025 will increase roughly $100 million to reach $2.9 billion, a Wireline Bureau public notice said Tuesday in docket 11-42. The bureau noted its July order extending for another year the current minimum service standards for fixed broadband data usage, mobile broadband and mobile voice telephony (see 2407050016).
The FCC Public Safety Bureau closed all remaining dockets for filings on review and approval of regional plans or plan amendments for spectrum in the 800 MHz National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee band, except for consolidated docket 23-237. The agency created that docket last year but didn’t close all the other dockets at the time (see 2307210053). “Some of these individual dockets have previously been closed and we now close the remaining individual dockets,” the bureau said in a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest.
The AI Safety Institute (AISI) plans testing frontier AI models prior to deployment, Director Elizabeth Kelly said in an interview at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Wednesday (see 2402070069). “We’re in a good position to begin that testing in the months ahead because of the commitments we’ve gotten from the leading companies," Kelly told the CSIS Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies. When it comes to developing safety standards for AI, the institute will rely on companies showing “what’s under the hood” in their next-generation work, she said. However, because it's not a regulatory body, the institute can only encourage that companies make such information available. Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Adobe, IBM, Nvidia and several other companies have agreed to voluntary testing (see 2407260027). AI safety regulation is under the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and reporting rules “have not been finalized," so questions remain, Kelly said. The Commerce Department’s website said BIS “will invoke the Defense Production Act to institute measures to enhance safety as next-generation frontier AI models are developed, including measures requiring developers to report the steps they are taking to test their models and protect them from theft." Kelly also spoke about the importance of international collaboration for developing safety standards for frontier AI through the International Network of AI Safety Institutes. International AI safety groups and other stakeholders plan on meeting in November in the San Francisco area, she said.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday signaled they want Donald Trump to rescind President Joe Biden’s AI executive order if the former president wins the November election.