March 24, 2017–The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision today dismissing a petition filed by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners that challenged a 2015 FCC order giving VoIP (voice-over-Internet-protocol) service providers direct access to numbering resources directly from the North American Numbering Plan administrators, rather than through third-party service providers. The court said in its decision today that NARUC had failed “to demonstrate an injury-in-fact, and thus failed to establish Article III standing to challenge” the FCC’s order. “The court lacks jurisdiction and the petition for review is dismissed,” it said.

NARUC argued in “NARUC v FCC” (case 15-1497) that the FCC in its 2015 order had given VoIP service providers the benefits of being telecommunications carriers by giving them direct access to numbering resources without subjecting them to the obligations of telecommunications carriers, including certification and service quality oversight by state utility commissions.

The FCC argued, however, that NARUC’s members are not injured by the numbering policy changes adopted by the order, and if they are injured by the failure to classify VoIP service providers as telecommunications carriers, that is an issue being adjudicated separately. The FCC has not to date classified VoIP providers as either telecom carriers or information service providers. Continue reading →

March 23, 2017–The FCC today adopted a report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking to assist correctional facilities in deploying equipment that targets contraband wireless devices used by inmates. The devices have been increasingly use for criminal activities, including operating drug operations and ordering the murders of people outside of prisons and jails.“ The rules adopted today will simplify the process for CIS [contraband interdiction system] operators to obtain … FCC authorization, allowing for quicker and easier deployment of these systems in correctional facilities,” the FCC said in a news release.

“The rules adopted today will streamline the process so CIS operators can obtain authorizations faster and with fewer filings,” it added. “A CIS operator must have arrangements with every carrier providing service in its area in order for the system to be effective.  The rules will require wireless carriers to cooperate with CIS operators and correctional facilities in a timely manner.” Continue reading →

March 23, 2017–The FCC today proposed allowing carriers to block “spoofed” calls that appear to be placed from a line for which the subscriber has made a “do-not-originate” request or from numbers that cannot be valid, such as unallocated or unassigned numbers. The proposal would expand on an industry do-not-originate (DNO) trial conducted by the Industry Robocall Strike Force last year (TRDaily, Oct. 26, 2016), in which participating providers, at the request of the Internal Revenue Service, blocked calls that appeared to come from certain IRS phone numbers, leading to a 90% reduction in consumer complaints about IRS scam calls.

In the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and notice of inquiry (NOI) adopted unanimously today in Consumer and Governmental Affairs docket 17-59, the FCC also sought input on how to address spoofed calls from outside the U.S. and on additional measures for enabling carriers to block illegal robocalls.  The NOI asks “how to create a safe harbor for providers from FCC call completion rules when they rely on objective criteria to identify and block calls that are highly likely to be fraudulent,” according to a Commission press release. The NOI also asks about what objective criteria might be used to assess whether a call meets the suggested “highly likely to be fraudulent” standard, Jerusha Burnett, an attorney adviser in the Consumer Policy Division of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, said in presenting the item to the Commissioners at their meeting today. Continue reading →