New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman warned of fake telecom invoices from a California company called UST. The attorney general said the company has sent $425 bills requesting payments for telecom maintenance to school districts, state agencies and municipalities, despite the entities not doing any business with the company. Multiple phone calls to the company from us on Friday weren’t answered.
A California bill that would ban state regulation of VoIP passed the Senate Appropriations Committee with amendments Thursday. Amendments to the bill, SB-1161, would ensure no change to the existing consumer protection rules.
Despite concerns raised by wireless carriers, most commenters at least supported the “goals of facilitating the restoration of communications after a catastrophic event by employing DACA technologies,” said a notice of inquiry on Deployable Aerial Communications Architectures, which was approved by the FCC Thursday. The FCC released the text of the NOI after our deadline Thursday (http://xrl.us/bm9d58). “This NOI further examines the potential for DACA technologies to provide communications when terrestrial communications infrastructures are disrupted or disabled due to a catastrophic event,” the NOI said. “To that end we seek comment on the role of DACA, the technical network service and platform descriptions of various DACA technologies that are currently available or in development, and the scope of their use in the aftermath of a catastrophic event, as well as how to best coordinate operations and spectrum availability and authorization matters. We also seek comment on system performance of DACA technologies, as well as coverage, capacity, interference, power consumption, and the interoperability of DACA technologies with existing communications services and infrastructure, among other issues.” Other questions on which the FCC seeks further answers is what lessons can be learned from U.S. military use of aerial platforms following disasters. “Are there relevant differences between military use and civilian use that should be taken into account?” it asks. “What are the costs and benefits associated with such use?” The notice also asks how DACA may be already used in other nations.
The House Communications Subcommittee will hold a hearing on international proposals to regulate the Internet on Thursday at 10:15 a.m. in Room 2322 Rayburn. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell is scheduled to testify along with David Gross, the former U.S. coordinator of international communications and information policy, and Sally Wentworth, the senior manager of public policy for the Internet Society.
The New Jersey Assembly last week passed a bill, AB-1218, which bans advertisers from sending unsolicited advertisements to consumers via text messaging. Under the proposed rules, advertisers could send text messages only to customers who give express consent. The bill would also allow consumers to opt out any time. Violations of the measure would result in fines of up to $10,000 for a first offense and up to $20,000 for repeat offenses, as well as injunctive relief, triple damages, and restitution. Additionally, violations can result in cease-and-desist orders issued by the attorney general. A 2010 version of the bill was unanimously approved by the Assembly but stalled in the Senate. The Senate hasn’t voted on the current bill.
USTelecom withdrew Ohio and Texas from its petition for a waiver of some of the FCC’s rules regarding eligible telecom carrier (ETC) compliance obligations Thursday (http://xrl.us/bm9d78). USTelecom had thought that Ohio and Texas would not be able to meet the June 1 deadline for providing subscriber certifications to ETCs, but based on an order of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, and a workshop conducted with staff of the Texas PUC, “USTelecom believes that those states will be in compliance” by the deadline, it said.
The “uncertainty of regulatory reform” has affected how Colorado-based CoBank evaluates loans to rural LECs, executives told top FCC Wireline Bureau officials and an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski Thursday. “In general there has been a clear correlation in recent years between CoBank’s maximum RLEC Debt/[EBITDA] tolerance and the uncertainty regarding cost recovery and regulatory reform, in addition to increasing competitive substitution and technological obsolescence,” said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bm9d6x). “CoBank’s leverage tolerance has been declining due to these factors."
Eliminating the FCC’s viewability rules would be “destructive” because 19 percent of cable subscribers in 35 markets with Trinity Broadcast Network stations get analog-only service, the religious network said. A draft order would scale back the viewability rule so cable systems with digital and analog channels would need only to distribute must-carry TV stations in digital and not both formats (CD May 25 p5). “If it loses 19 percent of the households in each must carry market, its economic viability would be negatively impacted and programmers would seek lower rates or even take their business elsewhere,” TBN said in a filing Thursday in docket 98-120 (http://xrl.us/bm9d5s). “Removal of the viewability requirement would strand a minimum of 5,806,307 analog only cable subscribers nationwide, and eliminate their ability to maintain access to the unique service provided by TBN’s stations.” The network said the rule should be extended because TBN’s stations “rely upon mandatory carriage."
Clarification: FCC rules require cable systems with analog and digital channels to distribute TV stations guaranteed carriage in both formats, and small systems only in analog (CD May 25 p5).
The inclusion of the highest composite E911 and exchange level extended area service charges could result in AT&T not charging a residential/single line business access recovery charge in some states, even if a portion of lines in the state exceeded the benchmark, the company’s executives told FCC Wireline Bureau officials last week, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bm9dzw). The telco also discussed the waiver granted to price cap ILECs in the tariff review plan order, which extended the interstate filing date from July 1 to July 3, and the applicability of the waiver to the ILECs’ intrastate tariff filings.