Industry groups challenging Maine’s ISP privacy law agreed to dismiss three Public Utilities Commission members as defendants in case 1:20-cv-00055 at the U.S. District Court of Maine, leaving only Attorney General Aaron Frey (D), said a Friday notice (in Pacer). ACA Connects, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom sued Maine last month (see 2002180050).

USTelecom is seeking a single change to rules approved 5-0 in November barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in networks funded by the USF (see 1911220033), it told aides to all the commissioners, except Jessica Rosenworcel. USTelecom’s petition is “very narrow” and seeks “reconsideration of a single footnote that expands the Commission’s information collection on use of covered equipment to all affiliates and subsidiaries of [eligible telecom carriers], regardless of whether the affiliate/subsidiary receives USF support,” said filings posted Monday (see here and here) in docket 18-89. Aides included Nick Degani, senior counsel to Chairman Ajit Pai.

USTelecom proposed an FCC robocall mitigation framework (see 2002240049) incorporating voice traffic not yet covered by current mitigation strategies, such as enterprise and TDM traffic, and a way to act against voice service providers with deficient robocall mitigation programs. A newer robocall law recognizes that the secure telephone identity revisited standards and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens "call authentication framework is a set of protocols developed for IP voice traffic," USTelecom said in filing posted Monday on docket 17-59. "Equivalent protocols for non-IP voice traffic do not presently exist. Likewise, the authentication of enterprise calls remains a subject of ongoing development work." Incompas and members Bandwidth, BT, Microsoft and TelNet met Wednesday with staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, asking them to publicly identify what they consider reasonable factors for opt-out call-blocking measures. "Call blocking in a highly complex communications environment carries a high risk of unintended consequences, including the possibility that lawful traffic may be inadvertently intercepted," Incompas filed. It wants more guidance to help prevent false positives. Commissioners will vote at their March 31 meeting on mandating Stir/Shaken (see 2003090050).

Chairman Ajit Pai plans to further deregulate voice service providers and "examine whether certain pricing and tariffing regulations that the FCC imposed on incumbent phone companies when they held a monopoly on local telephone service still make sense today," he blogged Monday, outlining his agenda for the March 31 commissioners' meeting (see 2003090044). The meeting will also have a vote on robocall/caller ID authentication, as Pai disclosed last week (see 2003060055). Three Media Bureau items also were tentatively scheduled, including related to ATSC 3.0.

State Democrats are pressing forward with net neutrality revivals with hope that last year’s Mozilla decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit alleviated lawmaker concerns that killed bills in previous sessions. The D.C. Circuit cleared a “path to be able to set our own net neutrality rules,” said Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D). He and other legislators and stakeholders spoke in recent interviews.

Representatives from USTelecom and member companies met Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff Monday to clarify an industry consensus proposal for 8YY revisions, said an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 18-156. "USTelecom clarified that its proposal concerning recovery for rate of return carriers would be inclusive of interstate and intrastate 8YY revenues via" the Connect America Fund intercarrier compensation mechanism. Participants included AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream.

Coronavirus concerns are forcing the cancellation of more industry summits and prompting the FCC to ban nonessential travel and participation in large gatherings (see 2003040061). America's Communications Association Thursday also announced the cancellation of its March summit.

The record shows new supply chain rules designed to protect U.S. networks are both “legally unsound and factually unjustified,” Huawei replied to the FCC. Commissioners approved rules 5-0 in November barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in networks funded by the USF, and sought comment on whether to expand the prohibition (see 1911220033). In initial comments last month, industry groups raised concerns (see 2002040047), and replies appeared in docket 18-89 through Wednesday. Last week, the Senate passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998).

The FCC Wireline Bureau plans to dismiss eight pending petitions for reconsideration of various parts of its 2011 intercarrier compensation overhaul order (see 1110280088), absent objections. Respond by April 20, says Wednesday's Federal Register. The petitions date to 2011. They include filings by USTelecom, Verizon, National Exchange Carrier Association, the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, Sprint/Nextel and MetroPCS.

Safe harbor rules should protect the telecom industry from liability when providers inadvertently block a legitimate call, they said, but companies placing outbound calls to customers demand efforts to ensure legitimate calls go through and corrective action when they don't, in comments to the FCC Wireline Bureau posted through Monday in docket 17-97. Public health and safety sectors report "alarmingly increased levels of blocked or mislabeled calls," said the Credit Union National Association. There's no comprehensive or reliable data on the effectiveness of blocking tools that identify illegitimate or fraudulent calls without also interfering with the ability of legitimate providers to have their calls completed or not mislabeled as spam, it said. USTelecom tells the FCC providers act with care and caution while call blocking. Providers are sensitive to overblocking, the accuracy of their analytics tools improve every day, and providers want to quickly address legitimate calls that are inadvertently blocked, it said. Industry can address concerns while under a safe harbor, it said. ACA International, which represents collection agencies, opposed a safe harbor and wants the FCC to rescind its call blocking declaratory ruling. It said current regulations give too much discretion to voice service providers to determine what types of calls can be blocked. Calls sent by alarm company central stations responding to an alarm continue to be blocked or labeled as potential fraud by voice providers, said the Alarm Industry Communications Committee. AICC urged the FCC to adopt a critical call list of numbers that may never be blocked, including central station numbers used to respond to alarms. But a database of whitelisted numbers "would be a target for bad actors to spoof and otherwise exploit, even with robust security measures," CTIA said. T-Mobile asked the FCC to work with stakeholders to adopt a narrow definition of critical calls, such as those from public safety answering points. T-Mobile also asked the FCC to remain flexible as it measures the success of call blocking. "The tactics used by scammers to target and reach consumers are always evolving," it said. Voice service providers should notify callers immediately upon blocking or labeling a call as spam, Twilio said, and designate a contact point for redress when calls are blocked erroneously. Industry must coalesce around a standard enabling transmittal of secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) call authentication information access across TDM-based networks as mandatory implementation deadlines approach, the Cloud Communications Alliance said.