Matt Daneman

The FCC is proposing a $120 million fine against the Florida operator of what Enforcement Bureau acting Chief Michael Carowitz called "one of the most disruptive robocallers we've come across." It said Adrian Abramovich's Miami operation made more than 96.7 million spoofed robocalls in Q3 and ultimately made hundreds of millions of such calls. It said the fine was for violations of the Truth in Caller ID Act, with Abramovich using "neighbor spoofing" -- making it appear they were coming from phone numbers in the same area code and the first three digits of the recipient's phone number -- and purportedly selling vacation deals from travel and hospitality companies such as TripAdvisor, Expedia and Marriott. People who answered the calls were apparently transferred to foreign call centers that often tried to instead sell vacation packages involving time shares. The agency said the hospitality and travel companies weren't affiliated with the call centers. It said TripAdvisor contacted the FCC last year after receiving complaints. It said medical paging service Spok complained in 2015 about a major robocalling event disrupting its emergency paging service -- an event that was traced to Abramovich's Marketing Strategy Leaders. The bureau said the fine is based on 80,000 calls it reviewed. Chairman Ajit Pai said it was the first FCC large-scale spoofing enforcement action under the act. The enforcement action was approved Thursday 3-0, and multiple robocall items are on the July commissioners' meeting agenda, announced Thursday (see 1706220050). The bureau said Abramovich has 30 days to respond. The agency Thursday issued a citation to Abramovich for apparent violations of Telephone Consumer Protection Act robocall limits and federal wire fraud statute. He couldn't be reached for comment. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, concurring, said Abramovich had an intent to defraud, likely not an intent to harm. He defended some manifestations of neighborhood spoofing: "There are positive aspects of VoIP that allow a consumer to use a local telephone number and I don't want to see that wiped out. It's not all bad."

The non-geostationary orbit satellite boom might require some regulatory changes both at the FCC and globally, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said Thursday after an expected 3-0 approval of OneWeb's application for U.S. market access for its 720-satellite NGSO constellation (see 1706120036). He didn't say what changes might be needed but said OneWeb and other NGSO applications pointed out issues needing addressing on orbital debris and in-line interference. International Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan said beyond the agency's current Part 2 and 25 rules update proceeding, it's looking to the 11 NGSO applications triggered by the broadband satellite constellation's processing round (see 1611160010) to also drive possible future regulatory changes.

The FCC's July tentative agenda has a consumer protection focus, with items dealing with robocalls, rural call completion and "slamming and cramming." Noting it's Consumer Protection Month, Chairman Ajit Pai in a blog post Thursday announcing the July 13 agenda said the agency is "extend[ing] our efforts to address the problems Americans confront in the communications marketplace and to crack down on those who prey upon the vulnerable for their own financial gain." The agenda also has items on rural call completion, Part 2 equipment authorization rules, allocation of spectrum for vehicular radar, wireless mic technical and operational rules and video description.

Pointing to SNL Kagan projections that retransmission consent fees are expected to hit $9.3 billion this year and nearly $12.8 billion by 2023, up from $7.9 billion in 2016, the American TV Alliance is renewing its push for FCC intervention. In a news release Tuesday, ATVA urged the agency to "take a hard look at the ancient rules on retransmission consent, must carry, and government-backed exclusivity." It said such rules "are directly responsible for skyrocketing fees and the record pace of blackouts this year. These troubling trends should erase any doubts about the necessity for strong Commission oversight during the proposed NextGenTV transition." ATVA has pushed repeatedly for retrans reforms as well as FCC and congressional action (see 1701090039 and 1704040062). NAB in a statement said, "Despite tired rhetoric from ATVA, broadcast programming deserves fair compensation for providing by far the most valuable content taken and re-sold by pay TV companies. Local TV stations look forward to Next Gen TV upgrades, understanding that giant pay TV companies will fight our innovation for anti-competitive reasons." Kagan said Monday that despite those higher retrans fees, station owners' margins are shrinking due to affiliation renewal contracts including bigger network programming expense increases. Kagan said its reverse retrans projections point to major affiliate station group owners paying major broadcast networks $2.9 billion this year, up 34 percent from an estimated $2.2 billion last year.

The FCC denied a Freedom of Information Act request by Communications Daily for information about any death threats toward or safety concerns involving Chairman Ajit Pai. In a letter Tuesday, the Office of the Managing Director (OMD) said information about such threats would be exempt because it could be part of an ongoing investigation, "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual," or both. We filed the FOIA request on threats Pai received and on security planning for commissioners' May meeting at which a reporter was manhandled (see 1705190031). About the security planning, OMD said that agency security "was operating under heightened awareness for potential disruptions and threats to the ... meeting," but there were no records of security procedures or correspondence specifically about that meeting. It also said the May 18 gathering was subject to general security directives, and those are exempt and their disclosure "would impair their effectiveness."

ViaSat and OneWeb want to ensure that OneWeb's petition for U.S. market access, which is to be voted on at Thursday's FCC meeting, is kept separate from the agency's ongoing look at updating some satellite rules. ViaSat, in a series of ex parte meetings in recent days with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai, and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn, and with International Bureau staff (see here, here, here and here) pushed for various edits to the draft order. The company argued numerous statements in the draft reach conclusions about issues subject to pending updates to Part 2 and Part 25 rules for nongeostationary orbit (NGSO) constellations, and that the petition could be acted on in ways that don't set up conclusions that are potentially precedential. ViaSat said its requested edits involve whether some ITU provisions the FCC hasn't adopted still satisfy agency obligations to protect Ka-band geostationary orbit constellations from Ka-band NGSO interference. OneWeb also is arguing for a demarcation between its petition and the FCC's ongoing NGSO rulemaking. OneWeb Senior Director-Regulatory Affairs Mariah Shuman told IB acting Chief Tom Sullivan that any issues about NGSO systems should be dealt with in the ongoing NGSO rulemaking, and there shouldn't be any decisions on such items in connection with the OneWeb petition, said an ex parte filing posted Friday. O3b, in a filing last week, also proposed several changes to the OneWeb draft order. The OneWeb item is expected to get a favorable 3-0 decision (see 1706120036).

A declaratory ruling approved by the FCC commissioners allowing cable operators to electronically send customers annual notices doesn't differ notably from the draft released earlier this month (see 1706010049), an official told us. The one tweak was in language on notices for customers opting out of email notification, we were told. The item -- responding to a 2016 petition by NCTA and the American Cable Association (see 1603080052) -- had been on the agenda for Thursday's meeting, but the agency said in a Monday public notice it was voted on circulation. The approved text wasn't posted Monday. The agency official said the item -- on circulation for some time -- was put on the agenda to force a vote, and commissioners then opted to deal with it on circulation for the sake of streamlining Thursday's meeting. Under the draft, cable operators' required annual notices to subscribers -- such as notices about services offered, pricing, and installation and service maintenance policies -- could be sent to a verified email address instead of delivered via hard copies. That verified email address is one cable customers gave to cable operators and that the customer has verified as the appropriate one for notice delivery, said the draft. The draft also specified that each notice had to come with a phone number for opting out of email notification at any time by choosing to receive paper copies of the annual notices. NCTA pushed for allowing electronic dissemination of other types of customer notifications, not just annual notices (see 1706130007), but that language wasn't incorporated in the ruling, the FCC official said. NCTA didn't comment.

As satellite broadband operators and terrestrial interests continue to jostl​e over siting of earth stations in the 28 GHz and 37/39 GHz bands, it's not clear how those competing arguments are being received at the FCC. The commissioners might not have a position yet, with nothing having been circulated, an eighth-floor official said. And it's tough to know how Chairman Ajit Pai might look at revisiting that spectrum frontiers issue, said a satellite industry executive. The agency didn't comment Friday.

Shareholder efforts to force an array of communications and media companies to make their lobbying and political campaigning efforts more public again failed in a series of proxy votes in recent weeks. Corporate governance experts say that despite repeated losses in recent years, such proposals likely will return, seeking broad shareholder support in the 2018 proxy season and beyond. "I don't see anything changing anytime soon,” said corporate governance lawyer Yafit Cohn of Simpson Thacher.

Facing pushback from terrestrial interests about their proposed tiered population limit approach to the 28 GHz, 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands (see 1705050056 and 1704210042), satellite broadband companies argued their tiered proposal wouldn't significantly affect upper microwave flexible use systems, in a filing posted Friday in docket 14-177. It would give earth station operators more flexibility to operate in rural areas that UMFUS operators likely wouldn't serve, the satellite interests said. The filing included multiple maps comparing the area covered by earth stations under current population limits with areas that would be covered under the tiered population approach they're backing. Populations covered in the examples would go up substantially, while the area where UMFUS would potentially see interference is "miniscule," the satellite broadband operators said. Behind the filing were Boeing, EchoStar, Intelsat, Inmarsat, O3b, SES and OneWeb. Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition co-counsel Mitchell Lazarus of Fletcher Heald said Monday the FWCC doesn't oppose a tiered approach, but the tiers as suggested by the satellite operators would cause interference to UMFUS in each of the examples the satellite operators submitted. FWCC said there's no assurance the examples are representative.