Category: Blog

Last week, President Biden finally made his picks for FCC Commissioners, and the two women nominated constitute a veritable “dream team” for net neutrality and regulatory advocates.  As expected, Biden chose Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to become permanent FCC Chairman.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a comprehensive study on October 21, 2021, analyzing how six major ISPs use their customer data. It is likely to have serious implications for our industry.

Industry comments in Docket 13-97 were filed on October 14, 2021, regarding the FCC’s proposal to add new regulations for VoIP providers to follow when they seek direct access to numbers.

In 2020, the FCC decided that 8YY abuse was out of control. After a contentious proceeding, it adopted rules transitioning certain originating 8YY access charges to bill-and-keep and capping 8YY database query charges at $0.0002.

On September 30, 2021, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Notice) in Docket 21-341 in order to stop the growing cellphone problems of SIM card swapping and port-out scams.

There is wide industry agreement that the current funding mechanism for supporting the Universal Service Fund (USF) is unworkable. The revenues used to calculate USF contributions have declined 63 percent in the last two decades,

The FCC will use its September 30, 2021, meeting to propose new actions to stop illegal robocalls. In a Fifth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Fifth Notice) in Docket 17-59, the Commission will propose steps to eliminate the vexing problem of stopping illegal robocalls that originate abroad.

In 2019 the FCC initiated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in Docket 17-142 in which it attempted to bring additional broadband choices to multiple tenant environments (MTEs) such as apartments, condominiums and shopping malls.

2021 has been a tough year for the FCC.  The agency has been stuck in neutral with four commissioners because President Biden has never nominated a third Democrat or, for that matter, a new chairman.

On August 24, 2021, in a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL), the FCC proposed a $5.1 million fine against John M. Burkman, Jacob Alexander Wohl, and J.M. Burkman & Associates LLC (Associates) for making