The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel hearing oral arguments about the FCC's one-to-one telemarketing consent rule (see 2412180008) didn't debate counsel much about petitioner Insurance Marketing Coalition's First Amendment arguments, Sheppard Mullins' A.J. Dhaliwal and Mehul Madia wrote Monday. As a result, they said it makes it unlikely the rule will be struck down on those grounds. Instead, the judges focused more on whether the rule's implementation violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which gives consumers the ability to agree to receive telemarketing calls. Dhaliwal and Madia said a decision isn't likely before Jan. 27, when the one-to-one rule goes into effect. But the panel seemed to indicate it believes the FCC overstepped its authority, they said, noting it's unclear whether the 11th Circuit invalidates the rule.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission fined Lumen's CenturyLink more than $130,000 for customer service violations, the agency said Monday. Customers experienced "excessive wait times to reach a live customer service representative" and CenturyLink failed to provide the commission with the required documentation. CenturyLink was fined for 178 violations between March through November 2022 and March 2023 through February 2024.

NTIA has received useful feedback on improving its planned Local Estimates of Internet Adoption (LEIA) project that it's working on with the Census Bureau (see 2409110021), acting Deputy Associate Administrator Rafi Goldberg blogged Friday. For example, Goldberg noted a Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis suggestion about adding inputs into the LEIA experimental model, such as the share of households with seniors. He also mentioned feedback from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights that racial, ethnic and other demographic lines be tested as model inputs. Multiple commenters said NTIA should employ metrics that include satellite and/or fixed wireless service, suggesting that LEIA should provide internet adoption metrics suitable for different purposes. LEIA was announced in September.

NTIA obligated its BEAD funding to all states and territories, the agency said Monday. All eligible entities may now access their funding (see 2411190072). NTIA released two documents to streamline the process for submitting final proposals. Three states -- Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada -- have completed their final proposals.

It's "not too late" for Nevada to change course on its BEAD plan, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Director-Broadband and Spectrum Policy Joe Kane blogged Thursday. Kane said the state's provisional choices for allocating its funding, which required NTIA approval, "reflect a misunderstanding of the digital divide." The state could deploy high-speed low-earth-orbit satellite service for $600 per location. "Nevada could use savings from a more reasonable deployment plan to provide a similar affordability benefit to its low-income residents" as the FCC's affordable connectivity program, he said. Nevada's Office of Science, Innovation & Technology didn't comment. Kane also urged NTIA to revise its fiber preference in BEAD program rules (see 2412130011). NTIA should stop its "irrational preferencing of fiber deployments and require that states choose the most economical technologies to complete deployment so that leftover funds can address more widespread and serious causes of the digital divide," he said.

Federal court oral argument this week regarding the FCC's one-to-one lead generation consent requirement (see 2412180008) seems to indicate that at least some of the rule will go away, Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lawyer Eric Troutman blogged Thursday. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel seemed focused on a consumer's "right of consent" -- an idea "the panel seems to have made up ... out of whole cloth," he wrote. Neither the FCC nor petitioner Insurance Marketing Coalition "seemed totally prepared for the curveball that may ultimately determine the outcome here," he added. The panel seemed to agree the FCC can set standards for implementing the express consent terms of the TCPA, said Troutman, and that limiting consumers to expressly defining in a clear and conspicuous way the entities they want to hear from is fine. He also said the panel also seemed to feel that the FCC's one-to-one consent rule wrongly restricts consumers from blanket consenting to receive calls from affiliates of a brand and wrongly restricts them from being able to consent to receive calls from different products that are not topically and logically related to a website. It seems likely the "logically and topically" standard will fall.

While georouting texts to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be useful, the Trevor Project said it's "vital" that georouting avoids taking precedence over LGBTQ+ youth specialized services and doesn't interfere with access to those services. In docket 18-336 comments posted Wednesday, it said that it's essential that LGBTQ+ youth who contact 988 are transferred to a provider of counselor services that is competent in LGBTQ+ issues. The FCC should ensure text georouting mandates don't complicate that transfer, it added. The 988 call georouting order approved unanimously at the FCC's October meeting included an NPRM about text georouting (see 2410170026).

The 2,411 voice service providers warned in a recent FCC Enforcement Bureau order to correct their filings in the Robocall Mitigation Database (see 2412100061) have until Dec. 31 to show cause why they shouldn’t be removed from the database, the bureau said in a public notice released Tuesday. “Each Company must cure the deficiencies in its RMD certification and notify the Bureau that the deficiencies have been cured or file a response explaining why the Bureau should not remove the Company’s certification from the RMD,” said the PN. “Removal from the RMD would require all intermediate providers and voice service providers to stop accepting all traffic directly from the Company.”

NTIA awarded more than $276 million in tribal broadband connectivity program support to 44 tribal entities Monday (see 2309270065). The second round of funding will support infrastructure deployment and broadband adoption projects on tribal lands. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving meaningful, universal Internet access. That’s especially true on tribal lands,” said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. “Each grant we announce today reflects a tribe’s own novel approach to bridging the digital divide in their community.”

Extended reality technologies, including virtual and alternative reality, as part of telehealth offer promise for Americans in rural communities, NTCA said in a report released Thursday. Moreover, AI “promises unique diagnostic and epidemiological benefits for care management,” the report said. The technologies together “offer advancements for mental health treatment, physician training and personalized care management.” NTCA noted that 66% of U.S. healthcare provider shortage areas are in rural counties. “This disparity in healthcare access is pronounced by findings that rural residents are, on average, older and less likely to be insured than urban counterparts” and experience “higher mortality risks from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, stroke, and respiratory disease than their urban peers,” the report said.