FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday that he will seek a vote at the Oct. 28 open meeting on revisions to incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) rules, which were approved with his vote during the Biden administration. Last month, the FCC said commissioners would vote at the meeting in a filing at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing challenges to the 2024 order (see 2509080034).
The Wireline Bureau is pausing deadlines connected with Section 214 discontinuance applications and transfers of control during the federal shutdown, said a public notice Wednesday. Section 214 discontinuance applications generally have a deadline by which they will be automatically granted, but that won't happen during the shutdown, the notice said. Instead, applications with comment deadlines that fall during the shutdown will be due the next business day after the government resumes operations. The notice listed 10 dockets with deadlines that are affected. “These actions are necessary to ensure the orderly processing of these applications and review of any comments that may be filed in opposition to these section 214 filings.”
The Telecommunications Industry Association Monday asked the FCC to act quickly on rules that could speed up the transition by carriers away from legacy copper networks (see 2507240048). Comments were due Monday in docket 25-208. The FCC also continues to hear from consumers on what they see as the advantages of traditional wireline phones (see 2509250045).
Incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) provider Pay Tel asked the FCC for a waiver of a rule against charging prisoner families ancillary fees. The ban was adopted as part of the 2024 order (see 2407180039) implementing changes required by Congress in the Martha Wright-Reed Act. In late June, in a surprise move, the Wireline Bureau delayed some deadlines in the order until April 1, 2027 (see 2506300068).
Disability Belongs, a nonprofit led by people with disabilities, urged the FCC to reach out to all those affected before eliminating a requirement that telecommunications relay services providers support the largely obsolete ASCII transmission format. Other commenters saw little risk from permanently deleting the requirement.
Virgin Islands Telephone's petition concerns the company's request to extend transitional high-cost support that's set to expire at the end of the year under a 2023 order (see 2509250041).
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance asked the FCC to act quickly on rules that could speed up the transition of carriers away from legacy copper networks (see 2507240048). Providers “are now required to replace outdated technologies, such as copper lines, with more copper lines in the case of a natural disaster,” said a filing Friday in docket 25-208. This mandate is “ostensibly” to quickly reconnect customers, the alliance said. “If the FCC removes regulatory red tape, providers can speedily reconnect customers by replacing old technology with new, more efficient technology.”
Somos filed a petition Friday urging the FCC to make major changes to how phone numbers are assigned, moving the agency away from its legacy systems to an IP world. The petition comes as the FCC shutters the North American Numbering Council (see 2506240074). This transition “is essential as spammers and cyber criminals supercharge their scams with AI to exploit the US telecommunications systems,” Somos CEO Gina Perini said in an email.
Comments are due Oct.10, replies Oct. 17, on MCC Network Services’ application to purchase MTCO Corp., said a public notice Friday. MTCO provides communications services in central Illinois and owns a 75-mile fiber-optic link. MCC owns a fiber-optic network in central Illinois and manages a fiber-optic network in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.
The FCC Wireline Bureau said in a notice Thursday that interconnected VoIP numbering authorization applications filed by three providers lacked some of the information required under the commission’s rules. The three providers are Porting.com, CallTower and ConnectTo Communications. The bureau reached out to request the information, and “to date, the applicants have not complied with the requests. As a result, the Commission has not released public notices accepting the applications for filing.” Meanwhile, the bureau approved an application by E. Ritter Communications under its streamlined approval process.