Recent legislative and regulatory rural call completion moves drew largely high marks from an FCBA panel Tuesday. Industry panelists said the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act signed into law would improve transparency by mandating the FCC require intermediate providers to register and meet service quality standards. Some also praised an April 17 commission order and Further NPRM (text) to replace "covered" long-distance provider data reporting requirements with oversight of intermediate provider performance, and to launch a rulemaking on the new law (see 1804170025 and 1804180025). But a rural telco official voiced concern the FCC shift could invite greater rural calling problems, and was less optimistic certain regulatory and technology transitions would largely address the issue.

The FCC asked a court to maintain a procedural hold on a tech transition case over the prior commission's regulation of copper retirements and telecom service discontinuances under Communications Act Section 214. The FCC said a November wireline infrastructure order (see 1711160032) reversed key decisions being challenged by telcos in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in USTelecom v. FCC., No. 15-1414, but noted that reversal is being challenged in the 9th Circuit (see 1712080057). It also noted briefs in the 9th Circuit are now due Friday, with responses of the government and intervenors due May 29. "It would be prudent for the Court to continue to hold this case in abeyance until the pending legal challenge to the Infrastructure Order is resolved," said the agency's filing (in Pacer) Monday.

The FCC unanimously approved rural calling and business data service items at its commissioners' meeting Tuesday. An order and Further NPRM seek to improve rural call completion (RCC) by making originating long-distance providers accountable for intermediate carrier performance and by launching a rulemaking to implement a new rural call quality law. A separate NPRM looks at allowing certain rural telcos to shift their BDS offerings from rate-of-return regulation to incentive-based price caps. Commissioners cited some changes made to drafts (here and here) circulated by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1803280046). Commissioner Mike O'Rielly again backed an extended jurisdictional separations freeze (see 1802230019).

Mignon Clyburn's April meeting will be her last as a commissioner, she announced (see 1804170021) at the end of Tuesday’s FCC meeting. Clyburn told us she doesn’t have a firm date for when she will leave the job she has held since August 2009, but it will be before the FCC next meets May 10. As acting chairwoman for part of 2013, Clyburn was the first woman to head the agency, noted Chairman Ajit Pai, who praised her as did all other members. “You can’t ask for a better opportunity,” she said of her time on the FCC. “It’s time to start a new chapter.” There was no word Tuesday on nomination of Enforcement Bureau Assistant Chief Geoffrey Starks, Clyburn’s presumptive successor (see 1803200055).

Net neutrality rules supporters and opponents disagreed how a state-by-state approach might affect competition. State-by-state net neutrality rules in the long term may advantage the largest incumbents -- the very companies that have put up the biggest resistance -- by making it harder for less financially resourced competitors to enter the market, Montana Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla told us. But supporters of state rules countered that smaller companies should have no difficulty complying with open-internet regulations.

The Senate Commerce Committee and House Digital Commerce Subcommittee are planning robocall hearings next week. Senate Commerce's hearing, set for Wednesday, includes testimony from FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Rosemary Harold and FTC Associate Director-Bureau of Consumer Protection Marketing Practices Division Lois Greisman, among others. Both agencies have been active in combating robocalls, including the FCC creating at least one reassigned numbers database to help businesses avoid calling reassigned numbers (see 1803220028 and 1803230056). Also to testify are Marketing Strategy Leaders former president Adrian Abramovich, Wiley Rein lawyer Scott Delacourt speaking on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, USTelecom Vice President-Law and Policy Kevin Rupy and National Consumer Law Center Senior Counsel Margot Saunders. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. House Digital Commerce's hearing begins at 10:15 a.m. Thursday in 2322 Rayburn. “Last year, robocalls, caller ID spoofing, and telemarketing scams were the worst they’ve ever been,” subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, said in a statement. “As scammers continue to use malicious tactics to convince people -- often senior citizens -- to hand over their personal information, we need to make sure consumers can stay one step ahead.”

Telco and cable entities updated a request for FCC actions against "access stimulation," with CenturyLink this week joining proposals building on a November letter from AT&T, Frontier Communications, NCTA, NTCA, Verizon, Windstream, WTA and USTelecom (see 1711170063). A revised proposed rule "follows up on our letter and would require carriers that are engaged in access stimulation to bear the financial responsibility for all terminating switched transport costs (including both flat-rated and usage-sensitive charges) between their end office (or remote or functional equivalent) and the tandem switch to which the terminating carrier requires inbound calls to be routed," said the parties' filing posted Thursday in docket 01-92. Another filing cited a meeting with Wireline Bureau officials.

AT&T and NCTA sought revisions to the FCC rural call completion (RCC) draft on the agenda for Tuesday's commissioners' meeting (see 1803280046). A draft order and Further NPRM aim to replace reporting requirements with monitoring of intermediate carrier performance. AT&T "generally supports" FCC efforts "to adopt a more effective regulatory approach ... particularly emphasizing providers' adherence to ATIS best practices in call completion," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-39. The telco "also strongly agrees" with the agency that comprehensive intercarrier compensation "reform" will likely diminish financial incentives contributing to problems, and it urged the FCC "to take prompt action." But AT&T said the FCC "should clarify or revise" its proposed RCC rules so they don't encompass and benefit LECs "engaged in access stimulation" that has "exploited" agency rules. The FCC should also "clarify that any determination that a competitive LEC meets the relatively broad definition of 'rural telephone company' for purposes of the forthcoming [RCC] rules does not mean that the [CLEC] also satisfies the far more narrow definition of a 'rural CLEC' for purposes of the Commission's rural exemption to its CLEC access charge rules" (capping rates). NCTA backed the FCC proposals to eliminate RCC "reporting obligations of covered providers" and "not to impose specific call completion metrics on covered providers." But NCTA voiced concern about suggestions "that originating providers could be held solely responsible any time a call fails to complete," said a filing on a meeting with Wireline Bureau staffers that included proposed line edits. It also sought clearer FCC guidance on how covered providers comply with their monitoring obligation, encouragement that terminating providers notify covered providers' RCC contact persons before FCC staff, and a 12-month transition period before rules take effect. USTelecom said it "generally supports many of the items outlined in the draft order, and believes their final adoption by the Commission will alleviate burdens on covered carriers of collecting information that does not [serve] a useful purpose, while emphasizing monitoring of intermediate providers that more directly addresses potential call failures." NTCA voiced objections and proposed changes last week (see 1804060043).

It was “clearly a mistake” for Facebook to trust Cambridge Analytica had deleted ill-gotten user data in 2015, and the platform needs to proactively police to ensure its tools are used for good, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told nearly half the Senate in a hearing Tuesday (see 1804090026). Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters separately about a “privacy bill of rights” they are crafting in response to the controversy. The bill is modeled after the EU’s general data protection regulation, they said. An aide for Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said the senator is working on his own legislative proposal.

After a data scandal affecting some 87 million platform users, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed himself for not taking a “broad enough view of our responsibility.” The remarks come in testimony prepared for presentation to Congress Wednesday in which he also casts blame on scholar Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica.