Telecom and mental health interests say privacy concerns should be considered as the FCC readies a report to Congress on the feasibility and cost of including an automatic dispatchable location that would be conveyed with calls to the 988 suicide prevention hotline, according to docket 18-336 comments due Monday. The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020 requires a report to Congress on geolocation. Enabling such capabilities for 988 calls would be "a significant undertaking," and the FCC needs to ensure resources and attention aren't diverted from the primary task of 988 implementation, USTelecom said. It said a study would be needed of call flows, the existing and to-be-developed technology and a new funding mechanism. Providing automatic location information for 988 calls raises numerous technical, privacy and policy issues that need careful consideration, and the FCC should propose that stakeholders develop recommendations to address those issues that will need to be resolved if Lifeline will be expected to receive and manage location information of mobile wireless 988 callers, CTIA said. "Dispatchable location is the gold standard for public safety" when an emergency dispatch is needed, said APCO, noting it's technically feasible to get such information, as evidenced by the dispatchable information available for some mobile 911 calls. Backing provision of geolocation information to the Lifeline centers it administers, Vibrant Emotional Health said callers get better support when routed to a local community call center, but such routing is challenged because 80% of Lifeline calls come from mobile phones. That creates a challenge of matching a device's number to the caller's location, it said. Citing possible privacy concerns, the American Association of Suicidology said Lifeline should develop better standardized universal training because the current approach to active rescue and imminent risk is insufficient "and rel[ies] on subjective, emotional, and sometimes reactionary responses." Messaging should be clear on what crisis services are and how they differentiate from 911 or emergency services, and crisis centers outside the Lifeline network need to be involved in service provision, it said. The National Alliance on Mental Illness said the 988 system optimally should provide "'someone to call' (988 hotline), 'someone to respond' (mobile crisis teams), and 'somewhere to go' (crisis stabilization programs)," and geolocation is key to mobile crisis teams. It also said the FCC report should include the need for federal guidance and best practices on protecting callers' privacy "while simultaneously ensuring appropriate and timely responses to people in need of in-person assistance."

Representatives of CTIA, the Edison Electric Institute, NCTA and USTelecom updated the FCC Public Safety Bureau on the industry Cross-Sector Resiliency Forum, said a filing posted Friday in docket 11-60. The forum is “a collaborative effort towards advancing resiliency through improving information sharing, identifying lessons learned from previous events, and enhancing coordination between the communications and electric industries before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of emergencies and disasters,” they said. At a meeting last month, the group “identified short-term, medium-term, and long-term activities to advance resiliency,” they said.

California will extend the FCC’s expired pandemic connectivity pledge for 90 days, California Public Utilities Commissioners agreed unanimously at their livestreamed meeting Thursday. The nonvoluntary moratorium on disconnections and late fees amid COVID-19 will cover traditional landline, facilities-based VoIP and wireless providers. Commissioners also voted 5-0 to make public much of a 2019 service quality report on AT&T and Frontier Communications.

Expect to see fewer big interagency spectrum disputes under the President Joe Biden administration, and the FCC taking a lot more action on delegated authority, with the commissioners being split 2-2, agency watchers said in a Georgetown University-hosted webinar Thursday looking at likely policy issues for the next commission. Many said the 2-2 commission won't inherently lead to political deadlock.

National telecom industry groups balked at a California plan to revive and require the FCC’s voluntary Keep Americans Connected pledge with no sunset. The California Public Utilities Commission lacks authority to stop disconnections for nonpayment and late fees amid the pandemic, said VoIP, wireless and wireline companies in Wednesday comments emailed to the service list for R.18-03-011. They said they still voluntarily help customers despite the FCC pledge having ended June 30.

USTelecom and Lumen separately urged caution in the supply chain security order set for an FCC vote Thursday (see 2011190059), in calls with aides to the five commissioners. The draft “correctly defines the scope of obligations and responsibilities in that they apply only to eligible telecommunications carriers (ETC) and reimbursement participants,” USTelecom said in a filing in docket 18-89, posted Monday. A requirement to replace equipment should kick in “only if Congress appropriates the funding required for removal and replacement,” it said. Take a “broad approach” on reimbursement, Lumen said: “Although Congress has yet to appropriate funds to support the reimbursement program, legislators are actively pursuing legislation that would continue to advance this important policy.”

NTCA elects Fred Johnson, Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative, as chairman; Keith Oliver, Home Telephone Co., as vice chairman; and Barry Adair, Wabash Communications Co-Op, as secretary/treasurer ... Optimus Ride taps ex-Verizon Vice President, City Solutions Sean Harrington as CEO and member of its board, replacing co-founder Ryan Chin, who remains at the autonomous vehicle technology systems developer "with responsibility over policy and sustainability initiatives" ... WWE appoints Karen Mullane controller-chief accounting officer; she's ex-corporate controller and interim chief financial officer, Etsy ... Board member Arun Sarin leaves Cisco, which says directors "reduced the size of the Board to nine members effective with Mr. Sarin’s resignation."

Colorado and Pennsylvania agencies urged caution as the FCC weighs how to deter states from diverting 911 fees on consumer bills for unrelated purposes. In reply comments due Wednesday in docket 20-291, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission warned some possible solutions in the FCC’s notice of inquiry “are inappropriate in response to the issue and may cause significant harm to the cause of improving public safety communications systems for use by the public.” The FCC shouldn’t adopt too narrow a definition for diversion that might conflict with 911 surcharge laws, the PUC said. Avoid imposing penalties that further harm local 911 systems, impede upgrades or severely hurt local governments, it said. Give states flagged as diverters an appeals process and a chance to correct behavior, it said. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency doesn’t support "a nationwide fixed ‘list’ of allowable 911 expenses at the federal level nor do we support a liberal application of 911 fees to all public safety functions," PEMA replied. “An approach to a national list of allowable expenditures that is more restrictive or contradicts state statutes or eligibility rules would penalize Pennsylvania 911 systems and has the potential to significantly impact 911 service.” Conditioning federal grants on no diversion is more effective when more money is at stake, PEMA said. "A large-scale federal funding program for 911, in a similar fashion to FirstNet, would serve as a strong deterrent to 911 fee diversion." The FCC hasn’t flagged Colorado or Pennsylvania as diverters. USTelecom and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) discouraged requiring providers to disclose on bills that a customer’s state is a diverter. ATIS said its Network Reliability Steering Committee “strongly opposes this approach because it would put the service providers in the middle of an issue that does not directly involve them and over which they have no authority to resolve.” Local and public safety groups warned in comments last month that some ways of punishing diversion could harm 911 (see 2011030029).

An omnibus FY 2021 appropriations measure under negotiation is likely to include funding for the FCC to implement the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (S-1822), said House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Thursday. He told a USTelecom webinar that he believes movement on infrastructure legislation like the House-passed Moving Forward Act (HR-2) is “not going to happen” during the waning days of the lame-duck session, but “hopefully we can get it passed” and enacted after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Many advocates of federal broadband spending are optimistic a Biden administration will be able to reach a deal with Congress on infrastructure legislation (see 2011200056).

Expect President-elect Joe Biden’s DOJ to quickly withdraw from a lawsuit at U.S. District Court for Eastern California challenging that state’s net neutrality law (case 2:18-cv-02660), experts said in interviews this week. It probably wouldn’t stop USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA and ACA Connects from continuing industry’s challenge (case 2:18-cv-02684), they said. Open-internet bills blossomed in many states after Chairman Ajit Pai’s FCC reversed the previous commission’s Communications Act Title II order.