Consumer groups rejected telecom industry calls to take back California disaster relief requirements. Landline, VoIP and wireless providers last month filed three applications asking the California Public Utilities Commission to rehear its August decision requiring communications providers to adopt emergency disaster relief programs upon a declared state of emergency by the governor or the president when a disaster results in service loss, disruption or degradation (see 1909250022). The providers said they do that voluntarily. “There is a need for mandatory and enforceable requirements that allow the Commission to ensure that the public receives the emergency consumer protections ordered, and to ensure awareness, transparency and oversight for such protections,” The Utility Reform Network, CPUC Public Advocates Office, Center for Accessible Technology and the National Consumer Law Center said in a Tuesday response in docket R18-03-011, emailed Friday by the center. Providers “tend to file material that consists of high level responses that are short on specifics and details,” they said. Consumer groups disagreed with VoIP and wireless providers claiming federal law pre-empts the state from making rules for their services. “VoIP providers clearly offer telephone service, using telephone lines,” and in disasters, the CPUC may “exercise the state’s police power, which is not preempted by federal law,” the consumer groups said. There’s no definitive ruling on whether VoIP is an information service that states can’t regulate, and a recent 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that it is information -- which could get Supreme Court review (see 1910090048) -- is “not binding in other Circuits and certainly not to a state commission outside the Circuit.” The Communications Act “is clear that providers of commercial mobile service are treated as common carriers under federal law, and that states retain their general authority to regulate these carriers even as they are specifically prohibited from regulating market entry or rates,” the consumer groups said. Customer protections don’t equal unconstitutional takings, they said. “The nature of the Decision’s regulation is temporary and designed to address the specific needs of a narrow group of customers for a relatively short period of time.” The rules don’t conflict with the California Emergency Services Act because the Act doesn’t provide for consumer protection for utilities customers after emergencies, they said. The California Cable and Telecommunications Association, representing a VoIP coalition, said industry’s three challenges “demonstrate clear error in such decision that should be promptly corrected on rehearing.”
The National Emergency Number Association said the FCC should require carriers to be able to locate the vertical location of wireless callers. NENA opposes CTIA’s “phased in” approach (see 1910100030), it told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing in docket 07-114, posted Friday. “Emphasizing public safety’s sensitivity to timeline slip, we noted that the proposed benchmarks have been in place since the Commission’s 2015 Roadmap,” NENA said. But NENA agrees with CTIA that the national emergency address database faces challenges. “We remain concerned that the NEAD could generate dangerously inaccurate location results for public safety, and that its compliance regime creates the potential for vast swaths of unserved 9-1-1 callers,” the group said. Top officials at NextNav met with Public Safety Bureau staff on the proposed requirement. “A major point of discussion during the meeting was the manner in which the Commission should determine compliance with its vertical location requirements in terms of handset penetration,” the company said: “The discussion included the definition of ‘z-axis capable devices’ and whether this could be defined as handsets manufactured after a certain date that include appropriate hardware components, such as a barometric pressure sensor or other capable component necessary to calculate altitude.”
Executive Vice President Brad Gillen and others from CTIA met FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry and Aaron Goldberger, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, on the agency’s regulatory framework for giving public safety answering points vertical location information for wireless calls to 911. Carriers' June comments supported a 3-meter standard for indoor wireless 911 calls but warned technological challenges remain (see 1906190011). “CTIA reiterated the wireless industry’s on-going commitment to enhancing wireless 9-1-1 location accuracy, particularly indoors, and provided a status update on the nationwide wireless providers’ efforts to meet the Fourth Report and Order’s vertical location requirements,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 07-114. “CTIA reviewed the nationwide wireless providers’ significant efforts to work across the wireless ecosystem to deliver actionable vertical location information to PSAPs [public safety answering points] during a wireless 9-1-1 call. However, CTIA noted that third-party adoption and scalability issues remain substantial challenges to National Emergency Address Database (NEAD)-based dispatchable location solutions.”
Japanese and South Korean officials will meet in Geneva today to address South Korea’s World Trade Organization dispute over Japan’s export restrictions, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. Ahead of the meeting, Japan reiterated that its export control measures on certain shipments to South Korea, which took effect last month (see 1909090041) are necessary to protect Japan’s export control system. “The update is necessary … to prevent the proliferation of weapons such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery,” the country said. “Japan will make clear that the update is WTO-consistent.”
Millennials welcome in-store interactions with sales staff (56 percent) more than Generation X and baby boomer shoppers, said a Thursday National Retail Federation white paper on shopping preferences of baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and Gen Z consumers. But the report said millennials also tend to be more annoyed (42 percent) and less welcoming (40 percent) of interactions with store associates than other age groups.
Industry and consumer group officials continued hoping Monday that lawmakers will reach a bipartisan compromise on net neutrality legislation, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Mozilla v. FCC last week upheld parts of the FCC 2018 order rolling back 2015 reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II (see 1910010018). They didn't stray during a Congressional Internet Caucus Academy event from their longstanding belief that a final statute either should or shouldn't have a basis in Title II and mirror the rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1910010044).
Industry and consumer group officials continued hoping Monday that lawmakers will reach a bipartisan compromise on net neutrality legislation, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Mozilla v. FCC last week upheld parts of the FCC 2018 order rolling back 2015 reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II (see 1910010018). They didn't stray during a Congressional Internet Caucus Academy event from their longstanding belief that a final statute either should or shouldn't have a basis in Title II and mirror the rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1910010044).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is unlikely to rush to address a remand on public safety, an issue remanded for further work by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday that largely upheld the FCC 2017 order overturning 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1910010018). Others said Wednesday because the issues involve public safety, the agency may feel compelled to respond (see 1910020028).
Parties on both sides declared some victory from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision Tuesday on appeals of the FCC 2018 Communications Act Title II broadband service regulation rollback. Backers of the order cheered most of the decision, while critics pointed to the court rejecting pre-emption of state and local regulations. There was partial dissent from Judge Stephen Williams and concurring opinions from Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins. See our bulletins: 1910010016 and 1910010013.
Parties on both sides declared some victory from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision Tuesday on appeals of the FCC 2018 Communications Act Title II broadband service regulation rollback. Backers of the order cheered most of the decision, while critics pointed to the court rejecting pre-emption of state and local regulations. There was partial dissent from Judge Stephen Williams and concurring opinions from Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins. See our bulletins: 1910010016 and 1910010013.