The FCC released a notice of funding opportunity for its Your Home, Your Internet and affordable connectivity program navigator pilot grant programs (see 2211100044). Applications are due by Jan. 9 at 9 p.m. EST, said a news release Monday. The commission made up to $5 million available for the Your Home, Your Internet grants and up to $5 million for the ACP navigator grants. Only pilot participants seeking grant funds will be required to adhere to the NOFO's requirements. "Through these one-year pilot program outreach grants, we hope to learn more about how to better market these programs, including how participants can reach out to those receiving federal housing assistance and help households overcome enrollment barriers," said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau removed Global UC from the robocall mitigation database after failing to meet robocall mitigation requirements. The provider failed to correct its certification or explain why it shouldn't be removed from the database, after receiving an October letter ordering it to do so, said an order Tuesday (see 2210030072). "We are cutting providers off and preventing them from accessing our networks when they fail to demonstrate they will protect consumers," said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel: "This is a novel way to stop robocalls, and it’s one we are going to keep using until we get this junk off the line." The bureau also directed intermediate and terminating voice service providers in a public notice to "immediately cease accepting traffic" from Global UC within two business days.

USTelecom's Industry Traceback Group initiated more than 2,600 tracebacks in 2022 to date, a nearly 20% increase from 2020. The group said its tracebacks "identified 146 providers as U.S.-based originating providers, 682 providers as foreign-based originating providers, and 145 providers as the U.S. point of entry," in a letter posted Monday in docket 20-195. It also began tracing illegal robocall campaigns this year targeting Mandarin and Spanish speakers. The group urged the FCC to "continue its work with federal and state law enforcement partners to bring aggressive enforcement against robocallers" and "voice service providers responsible for the illegal robocall problem."

The FCC released its broadband consumer labels Thursday, requiring ISPs to display machine-readable information at the point of sale. The order, adopted Nov. 14, requires providers to list monthly prices and itemized fees, whether it participates in the affordable connectivity program, and speed data. The order takes effect 30 days after Federal Register publication. Compliance with the rules is not required until one year after OMB approval for providers with 100,000 or fewer subscribers and six months for all other providers. The goal is to "make the purchasing of broadband service more simple and more competitive for consumers everywhere," said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said he looks forward to reviewing the record on whether the labels should include cybersecurity information. Doing so "could be very valuable to consumers" and "push ISPs to compete on network security," Starks said. The commission adopted one label requiring the same information in the same format for fixed and mobile broadband providers. Providers must include information about latency. It's "important to any application involving users interacting with each other, a device, or an application," the order said. An accompanying NPRM seeks comment on "alternative speed and latency measurements for the label going forward." The NPRM also seeks comment on the label's accessibility and availability in multiple languages, other performance data, and network management information. Comments will be due 30 days after Federal Register publication, 60 days for replies. The new label will "help consumers better understand their internet access purchases" and "allow for an effective apples-to-apples comparison tool when shopping for services in the marketplace," said Wireless ISP Association Vice President-Policy Louis Peraertz. It's a "good first step," said Next Century Cities Senior Policy Counsel Ryan Johnston: "Without including the label on a consumer's bill, the broadband nutrition label falls short of its goal."

OMB approved an information collection associated with an FCC order requiring gateway providers to block calls based on a “reasonable Do Not Originate (DNO) list,” said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. Compliance with the rule is required beginning Dec. 19. Commissioners approved the item in May (see 2205190023).

The Fiber Broadband Association and NTCA marked the one-year anniversary Tuesday of President Joe Biden's signing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included $65 billion for broadband (see 2111150074). "If executed properly, the programs created by this landmark law have the potential to deliver on the promise of innovative technologies, create new jobs, and enable breakthroughs in healthcare and education for communities that have been left behind for as long as any of us can remember," said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. "We stand ready to work with the government at all levels and with partners across the nation to get this right and to connect more rural Americans." Fiber "has been determined to be the broadband infrastructure of choice, and this progress has opened a tremendous opportunity for the fiber broadband industry," said FBA CEO Gary Bolton in a statement: "We are excited to keep the momentum going."

A coalition of consumer advocacy and research organizations responding to Nagish's application for certification raised concerns about the FCC's approval process for applications to provide IP captioned telephone services using automatic speech recognition only. The Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., Hearing Loss Association of America, National Association of the Deaf and Gallaudet University's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing said they were concerned about the FCC reviewing applications "without first creating technology-neutral minimum standards" or making enough information publicly available, per an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 03-123. The groups said "little progress has been made on these issues as the urgency to address them has increased over the past three years" and questioned the "quality, privacy, and other tradeoffs involved in using ASR." Nagish's application, "though commendable in parts, follows other applications in seeking to bypass many of the existing requirements intended to ensure the quality of human-captioner-based IP CTS," the groups said, adding the FCC should "focus on in-call switching functionality."

Verizon backed the Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) Broadband Coalition proposal to extend the program, per an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 10-90 (see 2207190056). The FCC could "give rate-of-return carriers the opportunity to make an enforceable commitment to provide 100/20 Mbps service" using their ACAM or Connect America Fund broadband loop support funding, Verizon said in a meeting with Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff. Doing so would prevent areas subject to enforceable commitments from receiving support through the broadband, equity, access and deployment program, Verizon said. It also backed "looking to the BEAD program or other new programs, rather than the universal service fund, to meet deployment goals" in order to "mitigate increases in annual support."

The FCC Wireline Bureau wants comments by Dec. 15, replies Jan. 17, on a Further NPRM on unused funds in inmate calling service accounts and telecom relay services for incarcerated individuals, said a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. The bureau wants comments on TRS obligations for providers and whether to adopt enterprise registration for IP captioned telephone services. It also wants comments on how to use the third mandatory data collection to establish permanent caps on ICS rates and ancillary fees. Commissioners adopted the item in September (see 2209290017).

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a cease-and-desist letter to Urth Access Thursday on apparent illegal robocall traffic about student loan forgiveness (see 2211030071). The bureau ordered the company to stop originating such calls, after an investigation with YouMail and the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group identified "upwards of 40%" of related calls originated from the provider, said a news release. The bureau "opened a formal case and is investigating these calls for possible further legal action." Also Thursday, the bureau issued a public notice authorizing all providers carrying traffic originating from Urth Access to stop. Urth Access CEO Fawaz Saleem didn't comment.