Reps. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa., bowed a House version of the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act (S-5021) Wednesday, drawing praise from several communications industry groups. The measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to ensure that broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and American Rescue Plan Act doesn’t count as taxable income. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., filed S-5021 in September (see 2209290067). “Although Congress recently provided historic investments to build out our nation’s broadband, many of the small businesses and companies that will use that federal funding to construct the networks and connect our homes could face steep taxes,” Panetta said: “This bill would exempt those grants from federal taxation and ensure that those dollars go directly towards our goal of universal broadband. Congress is working together to address the digital divide with investment and incentives and this bipartisan legislation would make it easier and quicker to close that gap with connectivity all across America.” Panetta’s office cited support from CTIA, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency shouldn’t write rules that rush ISPs and network providers reporting cyber incidents, said representatives from Comcast, Oracle and Palo Alto Networks Tuesday.

USTelecom's Industry Traceback Group initiated more than 2,600 tracebacks in 2022 to date, a nearly 20% increase from 2020. The group said its tracebacks "identified 146 providers as U.S.-based originating providers, 682 providers as foreign-based originating providers, and 145 providers as the U.S. point of entry," in a letter posted Monday in docket 20-195. It also began tracing illegal robocall campaigns this year targeting Mandarin and Spanish speakers. The group urged the FCC to "continue its work with federal and state law enforcement partners to bring aggressive enforcement against robocallers" and "voice service providers responsible for the illegal robocall problem."

Industry and broadband experts welcomed the release Friday of the FCC’s draft broadband availability maps. Many said they plan to participate in the challenge process because NTIA is required by Congress to use the FCC’s maps for its broadband, equity, access and deployment program funding allocations.

Industry and state broadband officials emphasized the need for better data on broadband availability and public-private partnerships as NTIA prepares to administer its broadband, equity, access and deployment program, speaking at USTelecom's broadband investment forum Wednesday. Some raised concerns about regulatory requirements in the BEAD program and ensuring state broadband offices are prepared to administer funding to subgrantees.

With an FCC commissioner vote scheduled for Thursday on improving the delivery of outage information to public safety answering points (see 2210270067), a few tweaks remain possible to the FCC’s approach, industry officials said. The 10th floor is still considering filings made at the end of last week seeking a few changes to the draft order, officials said. APCO filed late last week and other filings were expected (see 2211100051).

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a cease-and-desist letter to Urth Access Thursday on apparent illegal robocall traffic about student loan forgiveness (see 2211030071). The bureau ordered the company to stop originating such calls, after an investigation with YouMail and the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group identified "upwards of 40%" of related calls originated from the provider, said a news release. The bureau "opened a formal case and is investigating these calls for possible further legal action." Also Thursday, the bureau issued a public notice authorizing all providers carrying traffic originating from Urth Access to stop. Urth Access CEO Fawaz Saleem didn't comment.

A coalition of industry groups proposed allowing providers participating in the FCC's affordable connectivity program the option to provide an "average net rate charged" to households for each tier of supported services in each five-digit ZIP code as part of the program's mandatory data collection. It would allow the commission to determine "at a geographically granular level" how many households are receiving service "with no out-of-pocket expense" and the average price for households that are "subscribing to broadband services that are not fully covered by the ACP benefit," said the Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 21-450. The mandatory collection could include a monthly rate for "each ACP-supported service tier" and the number of subscribers in a ZIP code, they said. The groups asked the FCC to disclose its data "on an aggregate basis" and within ranges for speeds or monthly data allowance to maintain providers' and consumer privacy. The groups also asked that data be aggregated to a higher geographic level if fewer than three providers are "in a geographic unit."

The Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA and four other groups urged leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees to pass the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act (S-5021), which would amend the Internal Revenue Code to say broadband grants enacted via either statute don’t count as “gross income” (see 2209290067). “The 117th Congress made historic investments in broadband infrastructure by allocating billions to programs” via the American Rescue Plan Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but “if Congress fails to act, grant recipients will be required to return as much as 21 percent of the broadband grants to the federal government in the form of taxes,” the groups wrote Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and their Republican ranking members, in a letter released Friday. That would leave “millions of Americans without access to the broadband they were promised. In addition to extending the expiring 100 percent expensing benefit, which would have a broader overall impact, Congress should exempt broadband grants from taxation as consistent with the ubiquitous deployment goals reflected in” ARPA and IIJA. The IRS previously “had the flexibility to act unilaterally to exempt some broadband grants from taxation,” including the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, the groups said: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “changed the statute, declaring that all federal grants, including broadband grants, are taxable as income. With this change in statute, it is now incumbent upon Congress to act to free the ARPA and IIJA broadband grants from taxation and ensure all of the broadband grants awarded will be used to reach Americans with connectivity needs.” The other signers were NTCA, TIA, USTelecom and the Wireless Infrastructure Association.

New York legislators could double down on a court-blocked state law that sought to require $15 monthly plans for low-income households. Assemblymember Brian Cunningham (D) plans to reintroduce his 2022 bill AB-10690 this January to require $5 monthly internet for low-income consumers, the Democrat said in an interview this week. Three ISP associations that sued New York over its previous affordability bill condemned the fresh attempt to lower broadband prices.