The North American Numbering Council (NANC) will meet at 2 p.m. June 24 at FCC headquarters, the Wireline Bureau said Monday. The agenda includes votes on reports and recommendations by the numbering administration oversight working group, including performance reviews for the North American numbering plan administrator, reassigned numbers database administrator and North American numbering plan billing and collection agent.

The Voice on the Net Coalition told the FCC that it backs the use of Stir/Shaken to counter robocalls and robotexts but has concerns about know your customer (KYC) obligations “and the potential for significant fines for violations of what is obviously a vague standard.” These obligations shouldn't be “defined through enforcement actions,” VON said in a filing posted Monday (docket 17-59).

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr reportedly opened an investigation into EchoStar's compliance with 5G buildout obligations connected to its spectrum licenses and directed FCC staff to seek comment on reconsidering a 2019 extension of buildout deadlines. In a letter published Monday by The Wall Street Journal, Carr said EchoStar has repeatedly failed to meet the buildout requirements associated with its spectrum licenses in the lower 700 MHz E block, the H block and the 600 MHz band. "That history is relevant today. Currently before the FCC are filings from EchoStar that claim to satisfy the bureau’s new December 2024 buildout obligation. But questions remain regarding these submissions," Carr wrote. Failure by EchoStar to meet its new buildout requirements "could result in the loss of its spectrum licenses and significant financial payments." Carr also condemned the 2019 extension as the result of negotiations behind closed doors, saying the extension allowed EchoStar to "kick the can down the road." The letter also said the FCC would issue a public notice "seeking comment on the scope and scale of [mobile satellite service] utilization in the 2 GHz band that is currently licensed to EchoStar or its affiliates."

Incompas is joining telecom industry voices in raising concerns about the FCC's proposed $4.5 million fine against Telnyx. The proposed penalty (see 2503050026), which stems from robocalls made on Telnyx's network, goes against the FCC's "know your customer" (KYC) guidelines and is essentially regulation by enforcement, Incompas said Tuesday (docket 17-59). Fining Telnyx when it promptly addressed the issue "risks subjecting voice service providers to a strict liability standard, compelling the adoption of KYC measures that may be ineffective for a particular provider, and chilling providers self-reporting for fear of punitive consequences," Incompas said. The Cloud Communications Alliance and Voice on the Net Coalition have also criticized the notice of apparent liability (see 2503110023).

The IEEE Standards Association announced Tuesday the launch of “interactive standards,” including for some communications industry standards. “Standards users ... can now manage complex operations dynamically with data that has been vetted by experts in the industry and has been approved as a standard, offering productivity improvements measured in terms of faster design times, project completions and rollouts,” the association said.

A spike in unlawful robocalls since January might be due to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down part of the FCC's 2023 robocall and robotext order (see 2501240067), Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawyer Eric Troutman of Troutman Amin wrote Tuesday. Illegal robocalls are at their highest level to start the year since 2019, after a significant decline in 2024, Troutman said. "Just a massive (and sudden) turn around," he said. "The bad actors out there are plainly winning," meaning "heavy-handed (and misguided) action from Congress or the regulators" is coming. The increase in unlawful robocalls eliminates any hope of tort reform to rein in "the insane number of frivolous TCPA suits against small businesses."

Representatives of Responsible Enterprises Against Consumer Harassment (REACH) met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on the group’s proposal that the FCC revise its robocall/robotext safe harbor rules (see 2501290033).

AT&T and Palo Alto Networks announced an offering Tuesday that delivers secure connectivity for business customers. AT&T Dynamic Defense “will provide real-time threat prevention, automated risk response, AI-driven operations, and cloud-delivered security, providing robust protection for data, applications, and users,” said a news release. The solution “will also enable protection for AT&T wireline and wireless connections within a unified, singular security framework across all devices, offering comprehensive security for businesses with a dispersed network.”

The Edison Electric Institute asked the FCC to act on its petition for clarity on a requirement that utilities have prior express consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to send demand response calls and texts to their customers (see 2503100047). “As EEI explained in the Petition, demand response programs are a ‘crucial strategy for utilities’ to help keep the electricity grid stable ‘given the dramatic increases of both energy demand, and the costs borne by customers associated with meeting that demand,’” said a filing last week in docket 02-278.

Responsible Enterprises Against Consumer Harassment (REACH) asked the FCC to clarify that calls made with a called party's consent are not solicitations and not subject to time restrictions under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.