Silicon Flatirons names Amie Stepanovich, from Access Now, executive director ... Tegna promotes Kari Jacobs to president-general manager of WTSP St. Petersburg, Florida ... USTelecom appoints Brandon Heiner, ex-CenturyLink, senior vice president-government affairs ... Intel names Claire Dixon, ex-VMware, corporate vice president-chief communications officer ... Liberty Media announces Chief Financial Officer Mark Carleton retires, becomes senior adviser; Controller Brian Wendling now also principal financial officer; General Counsel-Chief Legal Officer Rich Baer now also chief administrative officer; and Courtnee Chun, head-investor relations, now also chief portfolio officer.

USTelecom and member companies asked the FCC to reconsider a policy of Universal Service Administrative Co. that may require individual employees who interact with a national Lifeline accountability database to enroll new Lifeline subscribers or verify existing ones to provide personally identifiable information, said a filing posted Friday to docket 17-287. USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink, Consolidated, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream representatives met July 1 with officials from the Wireline Bureau, including Deputy Chief Trent Harkrader. USTelecom said its members are "well-known to the Commission, and the Commission can easily trace any individual representative back through the parent organization using simple business records like work email address and business phone number." Other industry groups expressed similar concerns (see 1906140022). Stakeholders worry the national verifier program isn't incorporating application programming interfaces quickly enough (see 1907050032).

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and other telecom-focused lawmakers are expected to move on legislation to improve FCC broadband coverage data collection process despite commissioners' planned Aug. 1 vote on a yet-to-be-released order on producing more-granular maps (see 1906120076). Officials and lobbyists believe further advancement of legislation like the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (Data) Act (S-1822) could influence the direction in the pending order.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a draft order Tuesday to grant ILECs forbearance from requirements to provide competitive LECs access to analog voice-grade copper loops on an unbundled basis at regulated rates and to offer for resale at regulated rates services that ILECs sell at retail (see 1805040016). Word came shortly after staff OK'd USTelecom's request to narrow its petition, itself approved shortly after the association's filing was posted. Pai's proposal would provide a three-year transition period to give CLECs and customers time to get alternative voice services. The draft doesn't grant forbearance from regulatory obligations governing broadband networks. USTelecom withdrew its remaining request for forbearance related to broadband, posted Tuesday, when the agency granted that request for withdrawal with an order in docket 18-141 Tuesday. Incompas CEO Chip Pickering called the withdrawal "a victory for small, local builders who deploy the fiber future." Given "robust competition in the voice market, these two mandates from the 1990s, which were intended to open monopoly local phone companies to competition in voice services, are no longer necessary," an FCC spokesperson emailed Tuesday. "These regulations are now harmful because they perpetuate reliance on legacy technologies and services and hinder the transition to next-generation networks." Commissioners plan to vote at their July 10 meeting on elements of the 2018 USTelecom petition for forbearance from requirements to make unbundled network elements such as transport loops available to CLECs at nonmarket rates (see 1906190044). USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter praised that coming vote, blogging favorably on other actions aimed at eliminating "outdated regulations and reporting requirements." Unresolved pieces to the USTelecom petition face a statutory deadline of Aug. 2.

A polygon shapefile approach to submitting provider broadband data, endorsed by NCTA, and a location fabric proposal backed by USTelecom both add valuable data to inform updated national broadband maps from the FCC and aren't mutually exclusive, said cable and telco representatives. Congress asked the FCC to develop more-granular broadband maps to better pinpoint where service is available to consumers and at what speeds. The agency is expected to address the topic at its August meeting (see 1906200048).

Comcast wants the FCC to adopt a shapefile approach to updating its Form 477 data collection to inform future broadband maps backed by NCTA, it said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 11-10. "The submission of polygon shapefiles would significantly increase the accuracy of the reported data because polygon shapefiles are more closely tied to a provider's actual service area than census blocks," it said. Comcast executives told the FCC in a meeting last July that "a mapping approach based on polygons or service availability can be implemented more quickly than an address-based approach" (see 1807160061). USTelecom supports an address-based location fabric approach to broadband mapping (see 1903220036). Comcast said broadband maps based on polygon shapefiles could be "created in time to determine the areas eligible for the Rural Digital Opportunities Fund." The Competitive Carriers Association asked the FCC Thursday to re-evaluate Form 477 data collection requirements for wireless broadband coverage to standardize strength measurements, utilize a cell edge probability of 90 percent or higher, adopt a cell loading factor of at least 5 percent on the downlink, and ensure clutter factors match local environments, CCA said in a news release.

The telecom industry is eager to help mitigate national security threats stemming from equipment installed on its networks that could be compromised by vendors' ties to the Chinese government, executives said Thursday. Stakeholders wanted to reassure Commissioner Geoffrey Starks at an FCC workshop on his "find it, fix it, fund it" proposal to address vulnerabilities in communications networks (see 1906190050). But carriers, especially those with small, rural subscriber bases, said "rip-and-replace" missions for companies that have Huawei or ZTE equipment installed on their wireless, wireline or broadband networks would be neither quick nor inexpensive. Some estimates place the cost to remove and replace the compromised equipment at well over $1 billion.

USTelecom and member companies presented ideas on the format and timing of the Rural Digital Opportunities Fund, in a meeting with staff from the FCC Wireline Bureau and the Rural Broadband Auction Task Force, said a filing posted Tuesday to docket 19-126. Executives from AT&T, CenturyLink, Consolidated, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream attended. They shared estimates on unserved housing units in rural census blocks and the importance of better broadband maps. Industry wants the FCC to wait to implement a proposed $20 billion, 10-year broadband funding program until there's a new system to better report locations that have and lack access to broadband. Among the FCC officials present were Chelsea Fallon, director of the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, and Sue McNeil, associate chief of the Wireline Bureau.

The FTC with state and local law enforcement launched a crackdown on illegal robocalls, including 94 actions against robocallers responsible for more than a billion bad calls, the commission said Monday. The FTC brought four cases and made three settlements, while other participating agencies brought 87 enforcement actions, it said. The effort also includes consumer education and promoting tech to block robocalls and curb caller ID spoofing, the FTC said. “We’re all fed up with the tens of billions of illegal robocalls we get every year,” said FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith. Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) “gets more consumer complaints about unwanted robocalls than just about any other issue,” he said. Missouri AG Eric Schmitt (R) aims “to work with our federal partners to educate consumers about robocalls, come up with new solutions to combat these robocalls, and hold those responsible for illegal robocalls accountable,” he said. USTelecom assisted the effort, said Senior Vice President-Policy Patrick Halley. "The FTC’s actions today are another strong step forward to protect consumers from illegal robocalls."

Prices for residential voice services "will be constrained by fierce competition" even if the FCC grants an industry petition for forbearance from a requirement that ILECs unbundle and resell DS0 loops to competitive carriers, USTelecom said, posted to docket 18-141 Friday. USTelecom continues to push for nationwide forbearance on the broadband side, too, but said the agency should at least forbear from unbundling requirements from DS0 loops in census blocks with competition from a cable provider offering broadband service at speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. The group also asked for forbearance from unbundling requirements for DS1 and DS3 loops in both census blocks with competition from a cable provider offering service at speeds of at least 25/3 Mbps upstream, and in counties deemed competitive by the FCC in the broadband data services proceeding. A draft order on the forbearance petition is set for a vote on at commissioners' July 10 meeting (see 1906190044).