The FCC Enforcement Bureau released on Monday data on traceback records requested from the Traceback Consortium on artificial or prerecorded voice calls where the consortium “identified an originating, gateway, or non-responsive provider.” The data covers April 1 to June 30 and lists hundreds of incidents. It doesn’t include records “where (1) the legality of the relevant call was disputed by the provider and resolved by the Traceback Consortium in favor of the provider; (2) the traceback was initiated in error; (3) the terminating provider could not identify the relevant call; or (4) the Traceback Consortium determined the call was untraceable,” the EB said.
FCC commissioners on Thursday approved an order expanding the range of accessibility features that must be included in videoconferencing platforms (see 2409040053). In addition, multiple commissioners at the open meeting said allowing non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service downlinks in the 17.2-17.8 GHz bandwidth should be a sizable boon to U.S. competitiveness in commercial space.
The California Public Utilities Commission again delayed voting on allowing people without social security numbers to apply for state LifeLine support (docket R.20-02-008). Staff pushed the item to the Oct. 17 meeting, said a hold list released Tuesday. The CPUC postponed the vote twice before; it was originally on the Aug. 22 meeting’s agenda. The last revised draft responded to various privacy concerns (see 2409120047). The CPUC still plans to vote Thursday on federally funded last-mile broadband grants and adopting rules for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment program.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
“Shoveling more spectrum” into the pool of available frequencies for unlicensed use won’t necessarily mean faster Wi-Fi speeds, Richard Bennett, High Tech Forum founder, said during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy webcast Wednesday. Bennett, who worked on the initial Wi-Fi standard, also questioned whether 6 GHz is taking off as a Wi-Fi band. It's expected he will lay out his arguments in a paper next week.
ATLANTA -- The U.S. is taking an increasingly hard line against all connected Chinese and Russian devices, not just those from particular manufacturers such as Huawei, cybersecurity expert Clete Johnson told attendees at SCTE's annual TechExpo Wednesday. Meanwhile, cable providers at TechExpo discussed why it's imperative that there is better convergence in wireline and mobile services.
The White House is focused on 6G and wants the U.S. to lead the world, Caitlin Clarke, special assistant to President Joe Biden, said during the 6G Symposium Tuesday in Washington. “We need to think about where we need to be now, before the technology is in place -- we cannot catch up,” Clarke said. Other speakers warned that the U.S. is falling behind (see 2409230053).
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 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.
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.”