Press Release

The Federal Communications Commission eliminated the broadcast main studio rule. The Order retains the requirement that stations maintain a local or toll-free telephone number to ensure consumers have ready access to their local stations.

The main studio rule, adopted nearly 80 years ago, currently requires each AM radio, FM radio, and television broadcast station to have a main studio located in or near its local community. The rule was implemented to facilitate input from community members and the station’s participation in community activities. The Commission recognizes that today the public can access information via broadcasters’ online public file, and stations and community members can interact directly through alternative means such as e-mail, social media, and the telephone. Given this, the Commission found that requiring broadcasters to maintain a main studio is outdated and unnecessarily burdensome. Elimination of the main studio rule should produce substantial cost-saving benefits for broadcasters that can be directed toward such things as programming, equipment upgrades, newsgathering, and other services that benefit consumers. It will also make it easier for broadcasters to prevent stations in small towns from going dark and to launch new stations in rural areas.

In response to concerns about threatening phone calls targeting schools, religious centers and other organizations, the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow law enforcement authorities – under specific circumstances –to access blocked caller ID information when needed to identify and thwart threatening callers. The Commission’s action creates an exemption to a rule prohibiting carriers from disclosing blocked caller ID information. Threatened organizations will no longer need to get a waiver from the rule on a case-by-case basis, enabling quicker investigation of threatening calls.

The Federal Communications Commission is looking to expand the consumer and economic benefits provided by consumers being able to take their phone number to any carrier. Number portability enables consumers and businesses to keep their current phone number when changing providers or, in some instances, when moving to a new location. But currently, nationwide number portability is limited. Now, the FCC is seeking comment on the best ways to provide complete nationwide number portability.

In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry, the FCC is seeking comment on the regulatory and technological changes that would be required to implement complete nationwide number portability between all service providers, regardless of size or type. Because the transition to complete nationwide number portability will require extensive work, collaboration and support by all parties involved, the Notice proposes taking an incremental approach.

The Federal Communications Commission approved updates to various Commission rules for hearing aid compatibility and volume control on wireline and wireless telephones. Under the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act, the Commission is required to establish rules that ensure access by people with hearing loss to telephones manufactured or imported for use in the United States.

With today’s action, the Commission continues its efforts to ensure that tens of millions of Americans with hearing loss have access to and can benefit from critical and modern communication technologies and services. With the Order, the Commission adopted a revised volume control standard for wireline handsets to provide a more accurate measurement of voice amplification. The Order also implements a provision of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act to apply all the Commission’s hearing aid compatibility requirements to wireline telephones used with advanced communication services, including phones used with Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services. Compliance with these provisions must be achieved within two years.

The Federal Communications Commission eliminated the requirement that US providers of international telecommunications services file annual Traffic and Revenue Reports. The FCC also streamlined the requirements for filing Circuit Capacity Reports. These actions minimize the costs to both industry and the Commission while providing the Commission with the information it needs to fulfill its statutory obligations and protect US consumers and carriers.

The Report and Order finds that the costs of the traffic and revenue data collection now exceed the benefits of the FCC collecting the information from international service providers on an annual basis. Instead, the Commission will rely, as necessary, on targeted data requests to international service providers, in combination with third-party commercial data sources, to achieve its statutory objectives. Today’s action also concludes that the benefits of the Circuit Capacity Reports continue to justify the estimated costs of this data collection. However, the Commission streamlines the reporting by eliminating the requirement that carriers file circuit data for terrestrial and satellite facilities. The data from the Circuit Capacity Reports that will continue to be collected are necessary for the Commission to fulfill its statutory obligations, including those related to national security and public safety, and will continue to play a vital public interest role for other federal agencies.

The Federal Communications Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to update two FCC rules to reduce regulatory burdens for broadcasters. Under the proposal, certain TV broadcasters no longer would need to file annual reports about socalled ancillary or supplementary services. These are services that some broadcasters provide using their spectrum in addition to their free, over-the-air television programming. Examples of ancillary or supplementary services include subscription video and data transmission services.

The FCC proposes that only broadcasters that earn revenue from the provision of ancillary or supplementary services, and that therefore must pay a fee to the FCC, would need to file annual reports going forward. This obligation is consistent with the FCC’s responsibility to report to Congress annually on the amount of fees collected from those broadcasters. The FCC also seeks comment on whether to allow broadcasters to notify the public of broadcast license applications through the Internet, rather than through newspapers and over-the-air announcements as required under the FCC’s existing rules. The FCC alternatively seeks comment on whether its broadcast application public notice rule should be eliminated. This is the second rulemaking that the FCC has begun as part of its Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative launched in May 2017.

The Federal Trade Commission is providing additional guidance on how the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule applies to the collection of audio voice recordings by organizations covered by the law, which requires certain operators of commercial websites or online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. The FTC updated the COPPA Rule in 2013, adding several new types of data to the definition of personal information, including a photograph, video or audio file that contains a child’s image or voice, to data already covered, such as a name, address or Social Security number. This update has prompted some questions about the application of this requirement when a child’s voice is collected for the sole purpose of instructing a command or request.

In a new policy enforcement statement, the FTC noted that the COPPA rule requires websites and online services directed at children to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting an audio recording. The Commission, however, recognizes the value of using voice as a replacement for written words in performing search and other functions on Internet-connected devices. The FTC will not take an enforcement action against an operator for not obtaining parental consent before collecting the audio file with a child’s voice when it is collected solely as a replacement of written words, such as to perform a search or to fulfill a verbal instruction or request – as long as it is held for a brief time and only for that purpose.

I think it is important to address the elephant in the room. There is currently a merger pending before the Commission that some argue will benefit from, and is the reason for, any changes to our media ownership rules. While I make no comments regarding this, or any, merger application, let me be clear: this transaction is in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues.

First, the statute requires the FCC review its media rules. Having failed that, we now have pending petitions before us to reconsider the past shoddy effort. Second, I have been calling for media ownership reform since joining the Commission and as a staffer in the U.S. Senate before that. It’s not a new position or reaction to a pending application. Instead, for the first time, we finally have a Chairman receptive to these ideas.

Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) have introduced the “Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure Act of 2017” (SPEED Act) (S 1988). Specifically, the SPEED Act would streamline federal permitting processes that impede the quick and efficient deployment of next-generation broadband technologies, including 5G.

Currently, new and replacement telecommunications infrastructure is subject to numerous, sometimes duplicative federal approvals, including environmental and historical reviews. These duplicative approvals extend to areas that have already been established as a public right-of-way (ROW), and where telecommunications infrastructure already exists. The SPEED Act would not preempt the authority of a State or local government to apply and enforce all applicable zoning and other land use regulations on communications providers.

Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) have introduced the “Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure Act of 2017” (SPEED Act) (S 1988). Specifically, the SPEED Act would streamline federal permitting processes that impede the quick and efficient deployment of next-generation broadband technologies, including 5G. Currently, new and replacement telecommunications infrastructure is subject to numerous, sometimes duplicative federal approvals, including environmental and historical reviews.