May 2015

Few things rankle consumers as much as unwanted calls and texts. Thanks to the passage of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, consumers can choose which calls they want and do not want. Yet, in order to maintain those protections, we must continue to close loopholes and empower consumers. The responsibility to protect consumers from robocalls that can be both costly and intrusive does not expire with changes in technology. That's why I am proposing today the FCC crack down on robocalls, robotexts, and telemarketing calls -- the number one source of consumer complaints at the FCC. I am proposing that the FCC rule on more than 20 pending petitions related to consumer protection and send one clear message: consumers have the right to control the calls and texts they receive, and the FCC is moving to enforce those rights and protect consumers against robocalls, spam texts, and telemarketing. We will empower and protect consumers in a number of ways.

First, we are giving the green light for robocall-blocking technology, declaring that these market-based solutions can be offered without violating our call-completion rules. The FCC wants to make it clear: telephone companies can -- and in fact should -- offer consumers robocall-blocking tools.

Second, we close a number of potential loopholes. For example, we clarify the definition of "autodialers" to include any technology with the potential to dial random or sequential numbers. This ruling is true to Congress's intent when passing the law, and would ensure that robocallers cannot skirt consent requirements through changes in technology design. We also close the "reassigned number" loophole, making clear that consumers who inherit a phone number will not be subject to a barrage of unwanted robocalls OK'd by the previous owner of the number.

Third, we make it easier for consumers to say "no" to robocalls. People won't have to fill out a form and mail it in to stop unwanted calls and texts. Any reasonable way of saying "no" is allowed.

[Commentary] Outgoing CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer spent an hour with NPR's Diane Rehm and reflected on his career. In the process, Schieffer was asked to name the biggest threat to the future of journalism. He said the decline of local journalism. Here are some of Schieffer's comments: "Unless some entity comes along and does what local newspapers have been doing all these years, we're gonna have corruption at a level we've never experienced...Because there's nobody -- so many papers now can't afford to have a beat reporter. For example, many papers don't have a city hall reporter anymore. They send somebody to cover the city council meetings, but to cover city hall, you have to be there every day and you have to know the overall story, not just report whatever happens on a particular day."

Schieffer is absolutely right. Less than a third of all newspapers in the country assign a reporter -- part time or full time -- to cover statehouses, according to the Pew study. Almost nine in 10 (86 percent) of local TV stations have no part-time or full-time correspondent covering the statehouse. Although the fates of big national media organizations -- such as The Washington Post -- get most of the attention as we all try to adjust to the new editorial and business realities of journalism, the disappearance of the littler guys is actually a bigger story. Institutional knowledge -- knowing who to look at, where and when -- are not the sort of things that are easily replaced. And that's a loss for all of us who care about informing the public the best way we know how about their government and its politicians.

Verizon is finding that as more of its customers migrate over to FiOS or it switches copper customers onto a fiber-based voice connection, more of its customers are increasingly using their cell phones as their voice connection during a power outage. Since fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections are not line powered from a Central Office (CO) like those that exist on a copper-based network, customers have to purchase their own alternative power supply such as a battery, generator or an uninterrupted power supply. The service provider recently met with the Federal Communications Commission to talk about how it can ensure customer premises equipment back-up power for its fiber-based services during power outages.

"An increasing number of customers found they did not need a battery back-up solution at all, given their increased reliance on their wireless phones in the event of a commercial power outage or use of cordless telephone handsets in their home that also require power to operate," Verizon wrote in an FCC ex parte filing. "We explained that in light of these concerns, several years ago Verizon began research to develop a best-in-class consumer friendly battery back-up option for voice services." Although Verizon can't monitor the charge level from the network, the telecommunications company told the FCC that customers are used to monitoring batteries in other devices, such as smoke detectors. In order to address customers' concerns about purchasing battery back-up solutions, the service provider created its "PowerReserve" solution, which uses traditional D-cell batteries to provide about 20+ hours of back-up power for voice service, depending on the model of the Optical Network Terminal at the customer's location.

In 2014, it felt safe to say that broadcast network television was slowly dissipating and those presiding over it were guiding its decline. Then, in early 2015, "Empire" hit -- on the last-place network and changed the equation. It didn't behave like a network TV show was supposed to behave anymore. It debuted huge, but then its ratings kept increasing. It had the kind of impact that nowadays is usually reserved for cable shows like The Walking Dead, and it was right there on good old, reliable Fox. Network television wasn't just salvageable; it could maybe still thrive. And yet "Empire" hit so late in the traditional development cycle that no one could copy it in upcoming pilots. As such, the new fall shows -- at least based on their trailers -- feel like they were made for that world where the business model was dying, where networks had to squeeze blood from a stone.

Television is an industry in which time passes quickly, where what's hot and new becomes outdated in a second. And now the networks are headed into the fall of 2015 with a bunch of shows constructed for the fall of 2014, for a pre-"Empire" world. But what we don't look at, as we pretend everything is just normal, is the fact that all of this is speeding toward something else, and nobody quite knows what that will be. So we smile and imagine that network TV, buoyed by this one new, massive hit, is going to be just fine. It has to be.