Responsible Enterprises Against Consumer Harassment (REACH) filed an emergency petition at the FCC Monday asking the agency to stay implementation of its one-to-one robotext consent rules, which commissioners approved in December 2023 (see 2312130019). The petition cites President Donald Trump's order on Monday (see 2501210070) requiring that agencies review all orders issued under the Biden administration. “The FCC’s one-to-one consent ruling was published in the Federal Registrar with an effective date of January 27 … but has not yet taken effect,” the petition said. Consistent with the regulatory freeze, REACH asked the commission to “immediately stay the effective date of the one-to-one rule until March 18, 2025, and re-open a comment period to consider issues of fact, law, and policy raised by the rule.” While the group “generally supports the one-to-one rule it has filed comments suggesting important modifications to help small businesses better comply with the rule,” said attorney Eric Troutman of Troutman Amin.
Public interest groups filed in support of the FCC’s 3-2 April decision (see 2404290044) fining T-Mobile $80 million for allegedly failing to safeguard data related to customers' real-time locations. T-Mobile was also fined $12.2 million for violations by Sprint, which it later acquired. In the Telecom Act, “Congress entrusted [the FCC] with the responsibility of holding the nation’s largest telecommunications providers accountable when those carriers violate the privacy of their subscribers,” the groups said in an amicus brief. Congress intended that Section 222 "ensure that telecommunications providers would protect personal data collected from their customers, and intentionally included broad definitions and gave the Commission clear authority to interpret them as technologies evolved,” they added: “Decades later, it has become clear that one of the most sensitive categories of data that telecommunications providers collect about their customers is mobile location data.” The Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Public Knowledge filed the brief. They urged the D.C. Circuit to "reject T-Mobile’s arguments and hold that the text and purpose of Section 222 clearly authorize the FCC orders under review.” If carriers prevail, “they will have successfully evaded virtually all means of legal accountability for violating their customers’ privacy, including data sold to bounty hunters.” Letting carriers avoid FCC authority “will mean that there is essentially no backstop to enforcing the privacy rights Congress guaranteed consumers under the Communications Act.”
As it begins moving customers off legacy networks to next-generation technology, AT&T filed at the FCC last week a test plan for its new AT&T Phone for Business -- Advanced (APB-A) technology, “an IP-based voice product that provides substantially similar performance” to the legacy service. The new technology is based on the company's AT&T Phone -- Advanced (AP-A) technology, said an undocketed filing by AT&T. It noted that AT&T's proposal to initially stop new sales and then discontinue residential local service in nine Oklahoma wire centers was based on the AP-A test plan. The FCC approved that move in December (see 2412230066). “The methodology set forth in this APB-A test plan is substantively identical to the methodology set forth in the AP-A test plan that AT&T employed in that successful discontinuance application,” the filing said.
The FCC Office of Communications Business Opportunities on Tuesday issued small-entity guides on compliance with the agency's wireless handset hearing aid order, "all-in" video pricing order and pole attachment disputes order. It said in docket 23-388 that the hearing aid compatibility rule for handset manufacturers will take effect on or after Dec. 14, 2026, while the hearing aid compatibility rule for nationwide service providers will take effect after June 14, 2027, and after June 13, 2028 for non-nationwide service providers. In docket 23-203, the FCC said that while the all-in pricing order is already in effect, cable operators with annual receipts of $47 million or less have until March 19 to comply. The agency said in docket 17-84 that the pole attachment disputes order went into effect July 25.
U.S. Supreme Court justices peppered both sides with questions on Tuesday as the court heard McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson, a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case with broad implications for the FCC and other agencies. Lawyers representing TCPA defendants fear that a decision overruling the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could mean any district court might decide whether a regulatory action is valid, leading to a bonanza for TCPA plaintiffs, who could seek alternative interpretations in different courts (see 2410170015).
President Donald Trump signed a host of executive orders Monday that could affect FCC policy going forward and have already led newly minted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to scrub the agency’s processes of references to diversity, equity and inclusion and scrap the FCC’s diversity committee. The executive orders include a pause on the TikTok divestiture rule, a freeze on new regulations, a return of the Schedule F rule making it easier to replace federal workers with political appointees, and policies requiring information sharing with the new Department of Government Efficiency. Another order issued Monday officially designated Carr as chairman.
Subsurface imagery startup Lunasonde plans to launch its San Xavier non-geostationary orbit cube satellite in July, it said in an FCC Space Bureau application posted Friday. The satellite will be used to demonstrate satellite functionality and image the Earth's subsurface and ionosphere, it said. San Xavier will operate in frequencies allocated for Earth exploration-satellite service and space operation service, it said.
The NAB-led multistakeholder ATSC 3.0 task force, The Future of TV Initiative (FOTI), released its final report Friday, but the document offers few actionable recommendations and shows little new agreement among stakeholders (see 2501090047). “The report will provide the FCC with a better understanding of stakeholders’ outstanding issues and concerns as it moves forward with the rulemakings necessary to complete the transition and will help focus the efforts of industry as they continue to deploy ATSC 3.0,” NAB said in a news release Friday.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Friday denied requests for review by Dish Wireless, AT&T and Excess Telecom concerning Universal Service Administrative Co. decisions seeking to recover funds disbursed under the emergency broadband benefit program. On April 3, 2023, USAC sent letters to AT&T, Dish and Excess “notifying them of non-compliance with the EBB Program rules” and alleging that they failed to "ensure certain households were eligible for the Emergency Broadband Benefit pursuant to claimed enrollment at” a community eligibility provision school, the bureau said. “With respect to AT&T and DISH, we find that USAC properly determined that the Petitioners failed to demonstrate the households’ eligibility for the EBB Program,” the bureau said: “We find that Excess has failed to show that good cause exists to waive the deadline to submit an appeal to USAC, and therefore deny their request as well.”
Georouting of texts to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline -- like calls to the hotline -- won't use a caller's exact physical location but be based on broader geographic data, preserving privacy, according to Lifeline administrator Vibrant Emotional Health. In a filing posted Friday (docket 18-336), Vibrant said georouting of texts would likely use identical or similar boundaries to those developed during proof of concept for voice calls, minimizing user-specific data.