FCC Releases March 31 Draft Items

Commissioners will vote on eliminating ex ante pricing regulation and tariffing of telephone access charges, in a draft NPRM for docket 20-71. The rulemaking would mandate detariffing of telephone access charges, and modify truth-in-billing rules "to explicitly prohibit all carriers from assessing any separate telephone access charges on customers' bills after those charges are deregulated and detariffed." The draft proposes ways to provide certainty in calculating USF contributions, "to ensure stability in such funding and support following pricing deregulation and detariffing of telephone access charges."

The move is "consistent with the FCC's commitment to eliminate outdated and unnecessary regulations and to encourage efficient competition," the agency said. It eliminates line items such as the subscriber line charge and access recovery charge. The NPRM asks for comments on alternative approaches, such as examining deregulation case by case. It considers finding the rate regulation unnecessary, for example, only in locations meeting certain conditions, such as where ILECs face at least one unaffiliated voice provider available in 75% of the census blocks.

The FCC would seek comment on whether to give smaller carriers extra time to comply with a secure telephone identity revisited standards and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Stir/Shaken) technology mandate, according to a draft item. The FCC would ask whether to impose a requirement prohibiting providers from imposing any of the costs on consumers and small businesses for caller ID authentication upgrades. Also up for comment, whether to require voice providers “using non-IP technology to either (i) upgrade their networks to IP to enable STIR/SHAKEN implementation, or (ii) work to develop non-IP caller ID authentication technology and implement a robocall mitigation program in the interim.”

The FCC plans to require use of Stir/Shaken by June 30, 2021 (see 2003090050). The agency said it's acting in reaction to earlier warnings it would mandate compliance if major carriers didn’t act by the end of last year and to implement provisions in the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act. “Technological advancements and marketplace developments in IP-based telephony have made caller ID spoofing easier and more affordable than ever before,” the draft says: “Taking advantage of the ability to use spoofing to mask the true identity of an incoming call, these callers have turned to this technology as a quick and cheap way to defraud targets and avoid being discovered.”

Starting with a 1994 program carriage order and then a series of FCC and Media Bureau decisions since then, the agency has been creating two different sets of statutes of limitations for program carriage complaints, which it now wants to make uniform, said a draft NPRM and Further NPRM. Program carriage complaints where there's no existing contract or carriage offer would need to be filed within a year of when an MVPD denied or didn't acknowledge a video programming vendor's request for carriage.

Amended language would clarify when an MVPD's alleged violation happened and end the possibility of a more open-ended interpretation of the carriage statute of limitations. It would seek comment on whether the FCC should specify a number of days after the initial request for program carriage by which the MVPD has to acknowledge the request or else the statute of limitations clock starts ticking. It asks whether that time should run instead from the date the MVPD receives the initial request. It said program access, open video system (OVS) and good-faith retransmission consent complaints have the same triggering event for the statute of limitations -- the moment a complainant notifies a defendant it plans to file a complaint. For consistency's sake, the regulator would revise those provisions so the triggering event would be the denial or failure to acknowledge a complaint.

The commission proposes that all reviews of all initial administrative law judge decisions on program access, program carriage and OVS complaint rules be handled with the same agency procedures for review of other ALJ initial decisions. It said the proposed amendments would make procedures more consistent and encourage more timely resolution of program carriage disputes. That would mean decisions on the merits of an ALJ's program carriage decision and OVS proceedings won't take effect before 50 days after the issuance. Decisions would be automatically stayed on the filing of exceptions by an aggrieved party.

The draft item on relaxing rules for distributed transmission systems broadcasters seek to use for ATSC 3.0 would seek comment on increasing the amount of allowed DTS signals outside a station’s authorized service area, whether the changes should apply to low power broadcasters, and how the changes could affect other spectrum users. Broadcast industry officials said the proposal is important for the transition to the new standard. They said the proceeding could have implications for another proceeding on TV white spaces.

A draft NPRM on updating the rules on significantly viewed stations would seek comment on updating the methodology for determining that a station is significantly viewed, and on whether Nielsen is an adequate source of data for that determination. The NPRM would also seek input on whether the FCC has the authority to modify these rules for satellite carriers due to language in the Copyright Act.