Industry regulatory fee payments for FY 2017 are due by Tuesday, said an FCC order to be published in Friday's Federal Register, though entities in areas affected by hurricanes Irma or Harvey have until Sept. 29 (see 1709150046). The order collectively assessed regulated industry parties $356.7 million and hiked satellite-TV provider fees (see 1709060050).

Parties must register soon with a new Number Portability Administration Center to ensure seamless access to related data and services, said iconectiv, the incoming local number portability administrator. It said service providers must register by Oct. 31 whether they're testing their NPAC interfaces or not. Law enforcement agencies and "wireless do not call users" have until Nov. 30 to register if testing their interfaces, and until Dec. 31 if not testing them, said iconectiv, which is currently scheduled to complete its takeover of LNP administrator duties from Neustar next May. More information is available at the NPAC transition website.

Comments are due Nov. 6 on revised implementation rules for the 911 grant program, said a notice to be published in Thursday Federal Register. NTIA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed the revised rules. The 2012 Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act made $115 million available from the Public Safety Trust Fund for the program, which funds improvements to 911, E-911 and Next-Generation 911 services and applications. The NTIA and NHTSA earlier said they planned to award NG-911 grants in FY 2018 (see 1701200026).

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Neustar said testing of caller authentication standards “is well underway” and 19 telecom companies signed on to tests in the ATIS testbed. “This industry interoperability testing is taking place through a virtualized testbed and software implementation at a facility exclusively hosted by the Neustar Trust Lab,” said in a Tuesday news release. The testbed was launched to support efforts of the Industry Robocall Strike Force (see 1610260053) to curb unwanted robocalls, a news release said. On Monday, FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry said curbing illegal and unwanted robocalls is a top FCC consumer focus (see 1709180015). ATIS said participation in the testbed shows commitment to the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs approach to call authentication. “The growing number and variety of participants using the testbed -- communications service providers, network manufacturers, solution vendors and government agencies -- speaks to the urgency and the industry’s overall commitment to combatting unwanted robocalling and caller fraud,” said Hank Skorny, Neustar senior vice president.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau plans to “develop and publish performance goals and measures for enforcement practices” to implement GAO recommendations for improving the bureau, Chief Rosemary Harold said in a letter responding to the recommendations that went public last week. House Commerce Committee Republicans sought the GAO audit in 2015 (see 1510230068). The GAO found the FCC had improved the bureau’s efficiency over the past five years but that there needed to be clear “performance indicators, targets, and timeframes” to effectively measure that progress. Lack of metrics also makes it hard for Congress to do effective oversight, the GAO said. This week, the regulator issued an NPRM OK'd by commissioners to harmonize certain bureau complaint procedural rules (see 1709180055).

Digital Realty completed a takeover worth about $7.8 billion of data center owner DuPont Fabros, as expected (see 1706090025), the buyer announced Thursday. The acquirer is adding two of the acquiree's directors to its board (see personals section in this issue).

The FCC-proposed USF contribution factor for Q4 is 18.8 percent of net carrier revenue from interstate and international telecom service end users, said an Office of Managing Director public notice in docket 96-45 in Wednesday's Daily Digest, as expected (see 1709050050). Up from Q3's 17.1 percent factor, it takes effect in 14 days absent further action.

Neustar demonstrated to the FCC existing and forthcoming products that could combat illegal robocalling, during a meeting with Wireline and Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureau staffers, including CGB acting Chief Patrick Webre. A docket 17-97 filing posted Tuesday said the agency should expedite implementation of the Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (Shaken) and Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (Stir) framework by having the North American Numbering Council create a working group to act as the secure telephone identity-governance authority and using the pooling administrator as a route for quickly establishing a security telephone identity-policy administrator. Commercial solutions now use calling name infrastructure to warn consumers of suspect calls and apply call pattern and behavior analysis to detect unwanted robocalling and suspicious activity, and let verified owners specify which phone numbers don't originate calls, to create an authoritative do-not-originate blacklist. Commissioners adopted a call authentication notice of inquiry in July (see 1707130054).

The U.S. telecom sector remains weak, at least in investors' view, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said in a Thursday research note. “Almost as quickly as it started, the short-lived Telecom rally of mid-summer already seems to be fading,” Moffett wrote. “Second quarter earnings reports were initially greeted with relief, and for a hot minute the Telecom sector seemed to have gotten its mojo back. But, in retrospect, the market’s reaction to Q2 results said more about how low expectations had gotten than it did about any real improvement in fundamentals. Industry growth metrics in Q2, it should be noted, were in fact the worst the industry has ever seen. Now, whatever meager enthusiasm there was for the sector has seemingly already faded.” T-Mobile’s Netflix promotion (see 1709060040) seems little more than a “giveaway of $10 per month,” but evaluations for Verizon and AT&T remain “enticingly low” and there's investor interest in a Sprint/T-Mobile deal, Moffett wrote: “And sentiment is still, well … awful.”

The registration period for the January CES opened Wednesday and for the first time requires attendees to furnish head shots that will be printed directly on the front of badges, amid other security steps added in past years. “It was something we needed to prep to do,” so that’s why the new procedure is being implemented for the first time, said Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-events and conferences. Registrants can link their CES applications to photos stored in their LinkedIn profiles, or they may upload JPEG files to complete their registrations, or they may snap their own head shots using the cameras on their laptops, through the app built into the registration website, she said.