Pai Wants 'Aggressive Action' Against Robocalls, He Tells CAC; NAB Talks Up ATSC 3.0

Pai seeks “aggressive action” on robocalls, which are “frankly a nuisance” and the top source of consumer complaints at the FCC, he said. Also, the chairman urged implementation of his proposals for closing the digital divide.

Pai urged enforcement action against bad telemarketers and a safe harbor so carriers can block spoofed calls from overseas without liability risk. The FCC should make it easier for consumers to report robocalls and for the enforcement bureau to track down fraudulent robocallers, he said, and the commission should encourage experimentation by carriers to block calls. Creating a reassigned numbers database could protect callers from dialing wrong numbers by mistake, said the new chairman.

The FCC may want to overturn its July decision to exempt federal contractors from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Pai said. Doing so might “close a potential loophole in our robocalling regulations,” he said. Consumer groups last summer asked for reconsideration of that declaratory ruling (see 1607260039). The FCC sought comment on the request last fall and is reviewing the record, said Consumer and Governmental Bureau Deputy Chief Mark Stone. The staffer agreed with Pai that it should be simple for consumers to report robocalls and said staff would work with the chairman to find a solution.

The chairman wants to enact his “digital empowerment agenda” to close the divide, he said. Pai proposed the agenda in a September speech in Cincinnati. The agenda includes “gigabit opportunity zones” for the nation’s most economically challenged areas and a push for better mobile broadband in middle America. Pai proposed increasing buildout obligations for wireless carriers in exchange for longer license terms, a Mobility Fund Phase II and setting aside 10 percent of future spectrum auction revenue for rural broadband, he said.

Strike Force

The Robocall Strike Force is testing a “Do Not Originate” list to tackle caller ID spoofing, AT&T Vice President-External Affairs Linda Vandeloop told the committee. The list would block calls originating from certain numbers. The strike force did a feasibility study that included a trial with the IRS, using a typically spoofed number that was meant only to receive calls. “We blocked all the calls going on that number,” Vandeloop said. “It really had a big impact and it was very, very successful.” Additional trials are ongoing and the group aims to complete the study this quarter, she said.

Meanwhile, the incentive auction has reached its final stage, said Incentive Auction Task Force Senior Adviser Charles Meisch at the meeting. Revenue coming into Friday morning’s bidding was just over $18.5 billion, he said. The FCC expects the auction to produce 70 MHz of licensed low-band spectrum and 14 MHz of unlicensed spectrum, and at least $6 billion for the Treasury and $10 billion for broadcasters, he said. The commission Thursday said it was accelerating the current phase of the forward incentive auction to four bidding rounds per day (see 1701260027). Friday, it released further information.

After bidding, the FCC will move to an assignment phase, expected to take “several weeks,” in which winning bidders can bid further for specific frequencies, Meisch said. He said that afterward, staff will release a public notice announcing the auction’s end, with detail on the reverse auction winners, forward-auction winners by market and new channel assignments for stations staying on the air. Then a 39-month post-auction transition period will start, he said.

ATSC 3.0

Broadcasters won’t seek federal money or mandates for the next TV transition to ATSC 3.0, said NAB's McFadden. As with the DTV transition, the next-generation TV standard won’t be backward compatible, but this time the industry wants to avoid a hard cut-off date, he said.

Migration to ATSC 3.0 will be a “wholly voluntary, market-driven transition,” McFadden said. “All we are asking for from the federal government is permission to invest potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in our own facilities to provide a better free over-the-air signal to our viewers.” Broadcasters petitioned for permission in April and are waiting for the FCC to launch a rulemaking, McFadden said. Broadcasters seek regulator approval of the physical layer of the standard; industry aims to finalize the ATSC 3.0 standard this year, he said. Broadcasters won’t ask for federal subsidies or additional spectrum, McFadden said. They won’t ask for a mandate for multichannel video programming distributors to support the standard, he said. Unlike the DTV transition, there will be no converter box program or firm cut-off date, he said. The FCC should address the eventual sunset of DTV in a separate proceeding, he said.

Stations plan to simulcast the current standard alongside the new standard with the hope that enhancements brought by ATSC 3.0 are enough to lure customers, McFadden said. “The theory, basically, for the transition is … ‘If you build it, they will come.’” Those benefits include 4K Ultra HD resolution, wider color gamut and enhanced audio quality, he said. If a user has broadband, it can integrate with IP connections to enable interactive features and advanced emergency alerts with finer geographic targeting, he said. The standard could potentially allow over-the-air broadcasts to mobile devices, he said. Coverage of the ATSC 3.0 signal will be comparable to DTV today, he said.

Broadcasters and consumer electronics companies are excited to embrace the standard, and migrations in South Korea and other countries should also push along the transition, McFadden said. Most users won't see any degradation to signal on the older standard when broadcasters simulcast ATSC 3.0, though in rare cases a station may stop offering HDTV through the older standard, he said. Users may be able to buy a “dongle” as a lower-cost alternative to replacing their TV set to support ATSC 3.0, he said.

“We’ve been through television transitions before,” McFadden said, answering a question about potential difficulties transitioning a country as big as the U.S. “We transitioned to color. We transitioned to DTV. … We think we can survive another transition.”