The Taxpayers Protection Alliance slammed FCC ISP privacy rules in a filing Monday in docket 16-106. “The Privacy Order was another example of how intrusive the FCC had become under the leadership of former Chairman [Tom] Wheeler,” the group said. “Partisan votes, a tilt toward regulation, and agency overreach were all components of the Privacy Order. … [It] represents the exact opposite of what should be a primary concern for the FCC, preserving and promoting a free and open Internet.”

The FCC E-rate funding cap was raised to $3.99 billion for the 2017 funding year beginning July 1 to account for inflation, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 02-6. It was a 1.3 percent increase from the current $3.94 cap, the PN said. It noted the commission in 2010 began to index the E-rate USF budget for inflation to ensure the USF subsidy program keeps pace with school and library broadband/telecom needs.

The North American Numbering Council will meet at the FCC March 28 at 10 a.m., said a commission public notice Thursday in docket 92-237. A proposed agenda includes remarks by Chairman Ajit Pai and numerous reports from numbering administrators, working groups and others.

PwC plans a local number portability administrator transition webinar March 15, 3-4 p.m. (EDT), said a Wireline Bureau public notice Wednesday. PwC, the transition oversight manager as inconectiv takes over Neustar's LNPA duties, also will be at the Incompas show in New Orleans April 4-5, the PN said.

"So-called public interest advocates" often promote self-interested regulation, including Communications Act Title II broadband oversight, suggested American Enterprise Institute scholar Roslyn Layton in a Wednesday blog post. A 1983 AEI book, The Political Economy of Deregulation, by Roger Noll and Bruce Owen, described how "the public interest becomes co-opted by special interest," and remains relevant today, wrote Layton, a Trump transition FCC landing team member who some see as a possible commissioner. She said it's "typical that entrenched interests oppose reforms that can legitimately help consumers." Noll and Owen found "many law firms and consumer groups claim to operate in the public interest, but regulatory process gives them a source of power they don’t have otherwise. As such, they are biased in favor of regulation over market solutions," wrote Layton. The "groups that demonize Chairman [Ajit] Pai are also the same ones calling for regulatory solutions over market-oriented ones, specifically the regulation of broadband under common carriage rules from the 1930s," she wrote. The groups want a "nationalized broadband network," not private provision, and see Title II as key to tapping broadband revenues to subsidize municipal networks; they also "oppose free data or zero rating from private providers, which lowers cost and increases consumer choice," she wrote, backing congressional oversight and "necessary FCC reauthorization" to help ensure the agency "focuses on the public interest."

The Technology Policy Institute filed comments at the FCC endorsing petitions for reconsideration of ISP privacy rules. The FCC last week stayed a key part of the order set to take effect Thursday, as the agency evaluates the recon petitions (see 1703010069). “The Order offers no evidence demonstrating that it would yield net incremental benefits over the FTC’s rules or even that the Commission attempted to make such a determination,” TPI said. “The Order fails to acknowledge any costs by not acknowledging benefits that flow from the creative use of information. It is therefore impossible for the Order to credibly claim the rules are beneficial.” The order also never demonstrates that ISPs have access to more, or more sensitive, data than other internet companies, TPI said. The order also ignores the costs of “creating entry barriers into the nearly $80 billion and growing digital advertising market,” the group said. “Entry barriers are likely to keep prices higher for advertisers by giving them fewer choices. At a bare minimum, the Commission should acknowledge this cost.” The comments were filed Friday in docket 16-106.

Imposter scams, mainly due to government impersonators, eclipsed identity theft as the second-most common complaint lodged with the FTC last year, said the agency's annual summary of consumer complaints released Friday. The FTC said debt collection -- at 28 percent of more than 3.1 million complaints in 2016 -- remained atop the list. The commission said imposter scams totaled more than 406,000 complaints, or 13 percent of all grievances. There were more than 399,000 ID theft complaints -- including employment- or tax-related, credit card, phone or utilities and bank frauds -- which were about 13 percent of all complaints, down from 16 percent in 2015. About 10 percent of complaints, or 292,000, were about phone and mobile services for advertising about mobile plans, unsolicited text message and problems with applications or downloads.

The USF contribution factor for Q2 will jump from 16.7 percent to 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, emailed industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg Thursday. He said Universal Service Administrative Co. projections for Q2 industry revenue were $13.6 billion, about $356 million less than the previous quarter, which, combined with projected USF demand of $1.99 billion, will cause the contribution factor to go up. The Q2 revenue decline "continues the downward trend in the USF contribution base, which places upward pressure on the USF assessment factor. USF revenues for the four quarters ending the second quarter of 2017 are $3.35 billion lower than revenues for the four quarters ending the second quarter 2016, a 5.6% decline," he wrote.

The Free State Foundation recommended ways the FCC can "weed out regulations" no longer needed. FSF said the commission should make its telecom forbearance process under Communications Act Section 10 the "deregulatory tool" Congress intended by "placing the burden" on those seeking continued enforcement. FSF President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Seth Cooper in a Wednesday commentary in The Hill said the agency should "breathe life" into its periodic Section 11 reviews by creating a presumption that telecom regulations are no longer necessary due to competition, absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. They urged reducing regulation on small businesses through Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, encouraging new technologies and services through Communications Act Section 7, overhauling video competition policy and doing further trials of process reform, as Chairman Ajit Pai "commendably" started.

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions initiated a "virtualized testbed" to help industry combat unwanted robocalls and caller ID spoofing. The testbed, to be run by Neustar, is intended to ease implementation of ATIS task force technical solutions for authenticating and verifying caller information, a joint release said Tuesday. "This functionality enables network operators to stop suspicious calls before they reach their subscribers, or provide notifications that allow consumers to decide whether to answer a call." The framework also is designed to assist law enforcement in finding the source of unwanted calls.