Category: Blog

The FCC released a Report and Order that phased out cost based ILEC unbundling requirements everywhere except in the most rural areas of the country.

Normally we concentrate on the FCC and the actions it takes that affect our industry. Today, however, we turn to the increasingly aggressive Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is now encroaching on ISPs more each day.

Industry comments are due on August 16, 2022, in a unique Petition for Declaratory Ruling (Petition) by the CLEC Midcontinent Communications (Midcontinent) filed on July 12, 2022, in Docket 22-277.

We have often pleaded with Congress to once and for all codify net neutrality rules, so we don’t continue to ping-pong between Republican and Democratic presidents. We envisioned that the two parties would compromise, forbidding blocking, throttling and paid prioritization of traffic, but rejecting utility like Title II regulation for ISPs.

On July 19, 2022, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel sent a letter to the top 15 mobile providers requesting information about their data retention and data privacy policies and general practices.

It never ceases to amaze me the ingenuity displayed by people attempting to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunities in switched access charges.

On July 6, 2022, the FCC released a Report and Order (Order) and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Further Notice) in Docket 21-346, establishing new rules to improve the reliability and resiliency of vital mobile wireless networks during disasters and other emergencies.

In a Report and Order (Order) released June 30, 2022, in Docket 03-123. the FCC adopted a new compensation plan for Interstate Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Fund support of Internet Protocol Relay Service (IP Relay).

Like a bad penny, the issue of access arbitrage continues to turn up every year or two. The last time we confronted this issue was in 2019, when the FCC released the Access Arbitrage Order, in Docket 18-155, in which it revised its Access Stimulation Rules to prohibit local exchange carriers (LECs) and Intermediate Access Providers from gaming the inter-carrier compensation process by inflating traffic volumes to maximize access charge revenues.