AT&T Wireless asked the FCC in a letter Wed. to confirm it lawful...
AT&T Wireless asked the FCC in a letter Wed. to confirm it lawfully could disclose certain customer proprietary network information (CPNI). The carrier said it was in talks with the National Communications System (NCS) to provide wireless priority service…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
(WPS). NCS initially awarded a WPS contract to T-Mobile USA and said last year it was on track to add other wireless operators to the program, which provides priority access to wireless networks to national security and rescue workers during emergencies. AT&T Wireless said it also was talking with NCS’s agent Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) on providing WPS. Although the carrier said it would provide the service directly to its customers, it noted that NCS administered the program and was responsible for assigning priority status to end users. AT&T Wireless said NCS and Computer Sciences had requested that it provide WPS subscribers’ call records, including location and charges for the calls, so they could ensure the system wasn’t being misused. “Because NCS/CSC simply provides wireless carriers with a list of the authorized WPS users on their networks, AWS is not in a position to obtain the customers’ consent to the disclosure of this information before it initiates service,” AT&T Wireless said. It said NCS had said it didn’t plan to obtain consent from WPS subscribers to access their CPNI or to condition grant of WPS status on an agreement to allow AWS to disclose such information. Sec. 222 of the Communications Act generally bars carriers from disclosing customers’ CPNI to 3rd parties without customer approval or a court order. AT&T Wireless said it believed that the customer information covered by the WPS program would be covered by an exception to Sec. 222, which allows disclosure in certain cases to protect against fraudulent or unlawful use. “Because widespread abuse of the WPS program could undermine its effectiveness, prevent life and property- saving calls by legitimate WPS users and tie up circuits that AWS’s other subscribers could be using, AWS would be permitted under Sec. 222(d)(2)’s antifraud provision to disclose, without customer consent, the call detail records of WPS users,” it said. Even with this exception in place, AT&T Wireless said it still would be willing to include certain contractual provisions to guard the privacy of WPS users. It said the contract would specify that the CPNI provided to NCS could be used only under the terms set out in the antifraud provisions of Sec. 222. The contract also would require NCS to provide notice to WPS users that the records of those calls might be provided by a wireless provider to NCS.