The FCC is getting lots of advice on potential changes to its draft order tackling robocalls and robotexts, set for a vote on Thursday (see 2409050045). Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington have mentioned concerns about the order but aren't necessarily expected to dissent on what is usually considered a top consumer priority, industry officials said Friday.
Country of origin cases
A phone company may be held liable for illegal robocalls transmitted over its network, a federal court ruled Thursday. Partly granting Florida’s motion for summary judgment, the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida found that Smartbiz Telecom violated the Truth in Caller ID Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). While the court will move to trial on Florida’s additional counts alleging Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations, Judge Jose Martinez disagreed with Smartbiz, which, as an intermediate provider that didn't initiate the calls, argued it can't be held liable under the TCPA. Smartbiz, Martinez wrote, "was involved in the placing of the telephone calls because it knowingly allowed fraudulent calls to transit its network.”
5G Americas released a paper looking at the ITU’s “IMT-2030 Vision” study and the “long and complex process” of developing international mobile telecommunications radio-interface standards. The Americas “must carefully decide the proper level of enhancement/performance of attributes originating in 5G,” said the paper, posted Thursday. 5G Americas noted that this is only “an initial framework, or vision for IMT-2030” and “one of the early steps in the IMT definition process.” The framework “has many details that remain to be determined: minimum levels of performance, mandatory and optional features, and which specific technologies are to be incorporated into next-generation systems,” the group said. 6G is expected to be cloud native “with computing and data services tightly integrated with the communications aspects in an inherently distributed and disaggregated fashion,” the group said. The ITU report is more than a technical document, blogged Viet Nguyen, vice president-PR and technology at 5G Americas. “It sets the stage for what will define 6G -- everything from enhanced mobile broadband to integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technologies that combine wireless communication with radar-like detection capabilities,” he said.
The FCC shouldn’t “shift the long-standing understanding of localism” in its proceeding on prioritizing locally originated programming (see 2403120071), said America’s Public Television Stations and PBS in a teleconference meeting Tuesday with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, according to an ex parte filing in docket 24-14. Public TV programming is local because it's issue-responsive, the filing said. “The definitions established in this rulemaking could have implications for what is considered ‘local’ broadcast programming in future regulations,” said the public TV groups. The FCC should adopt a “qualified” noncommercial educational broadcast station definition that would allow NCE applications to be prioritized without meeting the agency’s proposed requirements that programming be originated locally. The public TV groups also said the FCC shouldn’t expand rules governing TV translators. Rather than requiring translators to designate communities of license, the agency should “grandfather in existing COLs for public television translators until the station requests to change their community of license.” Doing otherwise could “create a burdensome engineering and administrative scramble for some public television stations,” the public TV groups said.
Representatives of Somos and the Ad Hoc Telecom Users Committee met with aides to all five commissioners about tweaking a draft order on using the do not originate (DNO) list in blocking unwanted and illegal robocalls. The order is set for a vote at the FCC’s Sept. 26 open meeting (see 2409050045). “Somos applauds the Commission for applying a DNO mandate for all carriers in the draft Order” and agrees the commission shouldn’t designate a particular list, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-59. But “a reasonable list must (not may) include” all invalid numbers where the area code or central office code begins with a 0 or 1, “all numbers in an area code that is not yet, or can never be assigned” and “all 10,000 and 1,000 blocks of numbers in area codes that are in service, but the blocks are not yet assigned,” the filing said. Somos would also include on the list “numbers for which the subscriber has requested call origination blocking.”
The House approved the Future Uses of Technology Upholding Reliable and Enhancing Networks Act (HR-1513) Wednesday on a lopsided 393-22 vote. The measure would direct the FCC to establish a 6G task force that provides recommendations about ensuring U.S. leadership in developing that technology’s standards. The House originally intended to consider HR-1513 last week (see 2409060053). HR-1513 lead sponsor House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., hailed approval of the measure. “We stand at a crossroads for the future of global innovation leadership” and the “economic and national security stakes in the race to 6G couldn’t be higher,” she said in a statement. “For the [U.S.] to stay the gold standard in wireless communications technology, we need to look forward and convene our best and brightest innovators to map the road ahead.” HR-1513 “will accelerate us down this path, making a crucial down payment on American leadership by taking steps forward as this technology evolves.” The House approved the Senate-passed Launch Communications Act (S-1648) Tuesday night on a voice vote (see 2409160056). The measure, which the Senate passed in October, and House-approved companion HR-682 would require that the FCC streamline the authorization process for commercial launches’ access to spectrum (see 2307260037).
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. Lawsuits added since the last update are marked with an *.
The House Commerce Committee is back on track to advance the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) as part of a markup session Wednesday, as expected (see 2409100070), but the measure’s Senate backers still face headwinds. The panel said Monday night it will mark up HR-8449, which would mandate that automakers include AM radio technology in future electric vehicles, along with 15 other bills. The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Title I or Title II of the Communications Act would bar the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), said amici supporting ISP groups in briefs Friday at the U.S. Supreme Court. NCTA, a cable industry group that didn’t join the original May 2021 challenge that several national telecom associations filed in a district court, said the ABA “would impose unprecedented and unlawful rate regulation on broadband services.” The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) also condemned the state law. “If the ABA becomes effective, it will achieve the opposite of what it purports to accomplish, making it harder for communities of color to subscribe to broadband.”
The FCC’s June rules for foreign-sponsored content violate the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency didn’t provide notice of plans for expanding the 2021 rules to cover political ads and public service announcements, said NAB in a petition for review filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The 2024 order was a response to a D.C. Circuit ruling in favor of an NAB-backed challenge to portions of the FCC's 2021 foreign-sponsored content rules. The FCC “did not even attempt to provide a rationale for changing course,” to go after PSAs and issue ads, NAB said in the filing, which echoes arguments Commissioners Nathan Simington and Brendan Carr raised in dissents back in May. “Adopting rule changes nobody could have reasonably anticipated is a textbook example of unfair surprise,” Carr wrote at the time.