The National Science Foundation has issued a request for information seeking comment on a subsea cable to Antarctica, said a Friday release. “The cable concept proposes to connect the largest research facility in Antarctica, the U.S. McMurdo Station, with either Invercargill, New Zealand, or Sydney, Australia, with the global telecommunications infrastructure,” the NSF said: “The cable would incorporate scientific sensors to provide an enduring observational instrumentation platform for the sparsely observed Southern Ocean.”

NTIA approved more than $9.5 million in additional Digital Equity Act funding for Maine and Washington, D.C., the agency said Friday (see 2412050031). Maine received in excess of $5.7 million and D.C. more than $3.8 million to implement their digital equity plans.

NTIA approved more than $61.2 million in Digital Equity Act funding for three states and two territories, the agency said Thursday. Florida received $41.7 million, Iowa $8.4 million, Montana $6.9 million, the Northern Mariana Islands $2.1 million and Guam $2.1 million. The states and territories will use the funding to implement their digital equity plans.

Quote Velocity reported on a series of meetings this week at the FCC raising concerns about the agency’s December 2023 robocall and robotext order, which clamps down on the lead generator loophole (see 2312130019). The company filed a petition seeking clarity last month. “We urged the Commission to clarify uncertainty arising” from the order “and its applicability to Quote Velocity’s business model,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-402. The order “expressly concludes that where a third-party agent is added to a live call with a customer (i.e., rather than a robocall or robotext)” the restriction “is not relevant to the transaction,” the filing said. But Quote Velocity said it’s fielding numerous questions about the order and its implications: “Quote Velocity is seeking clarification from the Commission given the company’s concern that, absent such a clarification, its business model will be threatened at the time the revised rules go into effect.” CEO Manny Zuccarelli met with staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks, Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez.

Voice-intelligence platform Hiya said Thursday it flagged more than 9.7 billion calls worldwide as suspected spam in Q3. Bank and credit card fraud is the top threat worldwide, Hiya said. “In almost every country, people are now being subjected to spam calls of this nature,” the company said: “The fraudsters’ aim is clear: convincingly impersonate banks or credit card companies enough to get their victims to reveal account information and passwords in order to gain access to bank accounts and remove funds.” Fraudsters impersonating Amazon, seeking personal information from victims, was the second-biggest global threat, the company said. Hiya detected regional differences. In the U.S. “Medicare scams continue to dominate and are likely to increase in Q4 during its open enrollment period,” the report said. “Scammers' tactics here are different, rather than entice victims to hand over financial information, it’s personal information such as their Medicare number that’s deemed more valuable, so they can falsely bill the US government.”

Representatives of the Insurance Marketing Coalition spoke with an aide to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington about the group’s opposition to the agency’s December 2023 robocall and robotext order, which clamps down on the lead generator loophole (see 2312130019). Simington was the sole dissenter. “We discussed the adverse consequences the Commission’s ‘one-to-one’ and ‘logically and topically associated’ consent requirements will have on small businesses,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 21-402. The 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court will hear a challenge of the order Dec. 18 in Atlanta (see 2410100011).

AT&T has plans for expanding its fiber network to cover more than 50 million total locations by the end of 2029, the carrier said as part of its investor day presentations Tuesday. Over the past four-plus years, AT&T “streamlined its operations and centered its business around the customer as it enhanced and simplified their experiences," it said in a news release: “The Company has also greatly expanded its 5G and fiber services to more people and places and is the largest capital investor in U.S. connectivity infrastructure since 2019.” AT&T also announced it’s working with Fujitsu and Mavenir on radios targeted to crowded urban areas as part of its open radio access network program. The C-band and dual-band radios “can be attached to existing utility and light poles,” AT&T said: “They can often be hidden, making them virtually unseen from street level. We are continuing to look for opportunities to bring additional third-party radios into the network when needed.” AT&T is working with Ericsson on its broader ORAN efforts. Plans are to complete the “modernization” of its wireless network using open technology by the end of 2027, the carrier said. “This network will support super-fast download speeds and serve as a platform for new product and [generative AI] innovation.”

The FTC, in a 4-1 vote last week, extended the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to apply to inbound telemarketing calls made for technical support services. Dissenting Commissioner Andrew Ferguson said his vote was "not because [TSR] ... is bad policy, but because the time for rulemaking by the Biden-Harris FTC is over." He added, "The proper role of this lame-duck Commission is not to announce new policies, but to hold down the fort, conduct routine law enforcement, and provide for an orderly transition to the Trump Administration." Ferguson said he will vote against rules that the statute does not require until the transition is complete. In a concurrence, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak said the Democratic majority "has prioritized controversial and unlawful rulemakings" and the agency "should redirect its efforts and resources toward enforcement against fraud and, only where appropriate, rulemakings that ensure the Commission can robustly prosecute fraud and provide consumers redress." She said the TSR amendment fit that bill.

The FCC Office of Economics and Analytics released on Wednesday its latest lists of providers that have “purchased, rented, leased, or otherwise obtained any covered communications equipment or service” from entities on the FCC’s list of unsecure companies. “Consistent with the Commission’s directive to ‘release to the public a list of providers that have reported covered equipment or services in their networks,’ attached are lists of such providers for the 2022 and 2023 Supply Chain Annual Reports,” OEA said: Many of the providers are “participants in the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, which supports the removal, replacement, and disposal of communications equipment and services produced or provided” by Huawei and ZTE.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau approved the reassigned numbers database administrator's request that subscribers’ unused queries to the reassigned numbers database will be added to the queries purchased with a new subscription. Subscribers have asked that unused queries “roll over to the new subscription ... prior to using 100% of their queries,” said a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The administrator “recommended this modification as it better meets the needs of subscribers,” the bureau said: “We have reviewed the Administrator’s recommendation and find it reasonable. The proposed change serves the interests of fairness by allowing a subscriber to, within certain parameters, keep the queries it has paid for but not yet used.”