Proponents of georouting text messages sent to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline are seemingly starting to coalesce around the use of federal information processing standards (FIPS) codes. That's according to docket 18-336 reply comments due Friday. The 988 call georouting order, which FCC commissioners approved in October, included an NPRM about text georouting (see 2410170026).
The Center for American Rights (CAR) has filed a news distortion complaint at the FCC against CBS, NBC and ABC over their coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador. CAR is the same entity behind the ongoing news distortion proceeding against CBS over a 60 Minutes interview. The complaint comes less than a week after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted a warning to NBC parent Comcast about its coverage of Garcia. “Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn’t cut it,” Carr wrote Wednesday.
CTIA and other industry commenters urged the FCC to proceed with caution as it considers changes to wireless emergency alerts (WEAs) that were proposed in a February Further NPRM. Comments were due last week in dockets 15-94 and 15-91. The FNPRM proposed allowing more flexibility in sending out alerts using a “Public Safety Message” classification (see 2502270042).
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has kicked off a rulemaking to bring back Schedule F under a new name and reclassify some federal employees to make them easier to fire, according to a fact sheet issued Friday by the White House. The change will allow agencies to “swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” the fact sheet said. The National Treasury Employees Union -- which represents FCC staff -- didn’t comment Monday but filed a lawsuit in January over the executive order reviving Schedule F (see 2501220080).
The Coalition for IP Transition continues to raise issues unrelated to Verizon's proposed takeover of Frontier, Verizon said Friday in docket 24-445. Verizon and the coalition have been jousting over proposed interconnection conditions (see 2504080061). The carrier said the coalition wrongly asserts that Verizon policies violate Section 251 of the Communications Act, which governs interconnection. Verizon said it's following FCC guidance when it negotiates in good faith in response to requests for IP interconnection and enters commercial agreements to exchange traffic in IP format.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau wants letters of intent by May 23 from entities interested in leading the industry consortium for robocall traceback efforts, said a public notice in Friday's Daily Digest. USTelecom's Industry Traceback Group currently holds the position. Comments on submitted letters of intent are due by June 11, replies June 18, in docket 20-22.
Pointing to a late Connect America Fund Phase II quarterly certification now having been submitted, Aristotle Unified Communications is asking the FCC for a rules waiver that would restore its Arkansas CAF support. In a docket 10-90 filing posted Friday, Aristotle said that despite curing the tardiness, the Universal Service Administrative Co. continues to withhold its Arkansas support, impeding its ability to provide broadband and voice service to Arkansas CAF locations. It said the submission failure was a ministerial error.
The American Federation of Government Employees condemned reported White House plans to revive Schedule F reclassification of civil servants. President Trump’s administration is planning to resurrect Schedule F under a new name, Schedule Policy/Career, Axios reported Friday. The rule change would strip numerous federal employees from civil service protections against termination, making them easier to fire at will. “President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley in a release. “This is another in a series of deliberate moves by this administration to corrupt the federal government and replace qualified public servants with political cronies.”
Two top Senate Armed Services Committee Republicans are voicing differing reviews of DOD’s recent proposal to the wireless industry to make 420 MHz from current military-controlled frequencies available for FCC auction while maintaining the Pentagon’s grip on the 3.1-3.45 GHz band (see 2504040068). Other lawmakers are skeptical that the proposal would lead to real progress toward an elusive spectrum legislative deal. Lobbyists pointed to the DOD proposal as aiming to dispel perceptions of an intransigent Pentagon but said it falls far short of the sort of compromise that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would likely accept.
A federal appellate court's rejection of a $57 million FCC fine -- calling it unconstitutional -- could force the agency to revisit and overhaul its enforcement processes. The agency clearly has authority to enforce laws requiring telecommunications companies to protect sensitive customer data, but the FCC "must do so consistent with our Constitution’s guarantees of an Article III decisionmaker and a jury trial," a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week as it vacated the fine against AT&T that stemmed from handling of customer data. T-Mobile and Verizon are challenging similar fines levied in the same April 2024 enforcement action. In siding with AT&T, the court said it was guided by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 Jarkesy decision regarding whether federal regulatory agencies can bring in-house proceedings to enforce civil penalties.