AT&T blocked its billionth unwanted robocall using a program that detects unwanted calls through network data analysis. AT&T’s fraud management team and big data scientists created the system, it said in a Thursday news release. “It examines more than 1.5 billion calls each day for patterns that indicate robocallers. It then drills down on suspicious activity that may be illegal or forbidden. One example is multiple short-duration calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call list.” The company said it's averaging 12 million blocked calls every weekday.

NTIA will hold the next meeting April 26 of its multistakeholder process on IoT security upgradeability. The process, which convened in October (see 1610190051), is now divided into working groups focused on existing standards and tools, technical capabilities, communicating security upgradeability and adoption incentives and barriers. Participants aim to use the meeting to “share progress from the working groups and hear feedback from the broader stakeholder community,” NTIA said in a notice to have run in an upcoming Federal Register. “Stakeholders will also discuss their vision of the timing and outputs of this initiative, and how the different work streams can complement each other.” The meeting is to run 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the American Institute of Architects’ offices in Washington.

The Federal Aviation Administration will release the first set of informational maps April 27, aimed at speeding drone operators' applications to get controlled access to airspace near airports, said the agency in a Monday news release. The FAA said the "facility maps" will help remote pilots customize requests "to align with locations and altitudes that the maps indicate are likely to be approved for small [unmanned aircraft systems] operations." The maps don't guarantee approval for a request, but could help simplify the process and improve an application's chances, said the FAA. The first set will contain about 200 maps, with more planned for release over the next year, it said.

APCO is seeking signatures on an electronic petition to the White House asking that 911 call takers be classified as part of a “protective” occupation, in the same category as police, firefighters and other public safety professionals. “As the federal government nears a final decision on whether to update its classification system describing occupations in the United States, APCO has launched a White House petition entitled 9-1-1 Professionals Should Be Recognized for Protecting and Saving Lives,’” APCO said in a release. “The goal of this petition, timed with National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, is to draw attention to the need to classify Public Safety Telecommunicators as Protective Service Occupations.” The petition states: "9-1-1 Professionals Should be Recognized for Protecting and Saving Lives."

The FCC plans a webinar Monday, April 24, 1-2 p.m. (ET), on its Consumer Help Center, the "agency's online portal for filing complaints and consumer information," said a public notice Friday. It said the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will offer an overview of the site. Registration isn't needed for the event, which will be live streamed here.

Sprint filed a petition at the FCC asking it to lift a requirement that carriers submit an audit of their payphone call tracking system every year. Rule 64.1320(f) “requires an annual certification that there have been no material changes to the completing carrier’s compliance with the criteria underlying the previous year’s audit report,” Sprint said. “This, in essence, requires a complete audit each year.” The company said the FCC should waive this requirement especially due to the dramatic decline in calls from payphones. “Sprint projects that the costs of the audit alone will be approximately 15 percent of the per-call compensation Sprint paid in 2016,” the filing said. “That is 15 percent of the compensation paid, not Sprint’s profit.” Some details like the cost to the carrier were redacted from the filing in docket 96-128.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the next Republican FCC commissioner nominated by President Donald Trump were trained as an economist, given Chairman Ajit Pai’s emphasis on “promoting more and better economic analysis as part of FCC policy making, in order to justify FCC deregulation based on the competitive facts and economic merits,” emailed Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition. Industry officials said the most likely choice for the open Republican slot is a female economist (see 1704040057). “The previous FCC was accurately characterized by a previous FCC economist as an ‘economics free zone’ because the only way it could logically reach its political conclusions was to ensure there was no economic analysis of market power, competitiveness of markets, costs vs. benefits, or private investment cases,” Cleland said.

S&P Global Ratings sees telecom and cable providers facing market challenges, as 2017 is poised to be "another tumultuous year" despite potential policy gains under President Donald Trump. "We believe the Trump administration's regulatory agenda is likely to be more favorable to U.S. telecom and cable companies than the previous one," said S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Allyn Arden in a release on a report issued Tuesday. "Despite the potential for tax reform and a more benign regulatory environment, we anticipate that intense competition, elevated leverage, and the likelihood of more M&A activity could pressure ratings on U.S. telecom and cable companies." S&P said cable is "better positioned since it owns a superior product and is increasing penetration in the business segment," while wireless and wireline carriers "have stretched balance sheets and aggressive financial policies that could ultimately hurt ratings as industry competition intensifies."

Universal Service Administrative Co. in 2016 focused on protecting USF integrity, streamlining and optimizing program operations, supporting stakeholders "through better online tools," and employing data "to improve operational effectiveness," said CEO Chris Henderson in USAC's annual report posted Thursday in FCC docket 96-45. "These initiatives became all the more important with the FCC’s new and ongoing modernization orders for Lifeline, High Cost, and Schools and Libraries. While Rural Health Care didn’t have a formal modernization order from the FCC, 2016 was a transformative year as we implemented changes to accommodate a growth in demand for funds. The ground work we laid to prepare for these program shifts was a stabilizing force in a year of enormous change, and has helped us execute a volume of work unparalleled at USAC."

Broadcom will sell Brocade’s data center switching, routing and analytics business to Extreme Networks after Broadcom completes buying Brocade (see 1611020050), the companies said in a Wednesday news release. Extreme agreed to pay $55 million cash for Broadcom’s divestiture. The companies said they expect to close the deal 60 days after Broadcom closes on Brocade. The divestiture is subject to regulatory OK but doesn't require any shareholder approvals, they said.