Federal Communications Commission

Sprint will pay $7.5 million to resolve a Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau investigation of the mobile wireless company’s failure to honor consumer requests to opt out of phone and text marketing communications. This represents the largest Do-Not-Call settlement that the FCC has ever reached.

In addition to the $7.5 million payment, Sprint will implement a two-year plan to ensure compliance with FCC requirements designed to protect consumer privacy and prevent consumers from receiving unwanted telemarketing calls. This follows a 2011 settlement with Sprint arising from complaints that Sprint made telemarketing calls to consumers who had requested to be placed on the company’s Do-Not-Call list. In its consent decree with the Enforcement Bureau, Sprint has agreed to:

• Make a payment of $7.5 million to the U.S. Treasury;
• Develop and put into action a robust compliance plan designed, among other things, to help ensure future compliance with the FCC’s rules requiring companies to maintain internal Do-Not-Call lists and honor consumers’ requests;
• Develop operating procedures and policies specifically designed to ensure that Sprint’s operations comply with all company-specific Do-Not-Call rules;
• Designate a senior corporate manager as a Compliance Officer to ensure that Sprint complies with the terms and conditions of the compliance plan and the consent decree;
• Implement a training program to ensure that Sprint employees and contractors are properly trained how to record consumers’ Do-Not-Call requests so that the company removes their names and numbers from marketing lists;
• Report to the FCC any noncompliance with respect to consumers’ Do-Not-Call requests; and
• File with the FCC an initial compliance report within 90 days and annual reports for two years.

On April 9-10, 2014, an extensive 911 outage occurred, centered in Washington State, but also affecting large areas of Oregon and portions of California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Press reports and preliminary data submitted to the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) indicate that in Washington alone, over 4,500 911 calls to public safety answering points (“PSAPs” or 911 call centers) did not get through during a six-hour period beginning just before midnight on April 9, 2014.1

Given the large area impacted by this outage, the interdependent communications infrastructure spread across multiple states and providers, and the critical importance of dependable and resilient 911 service throughout the United States, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is examining the causes, effects, and implications of this outage.

To ensure that the Commission receives all relevant information to permit a thorough and accurate analysis, the Bureau has opened a public docket and invites interested parties to provide information concerning the causes, effects, and implications of the outage.

The Institute for Information Policy (IIP) of Pennsylvania State University and the Federal Communications Commission are co-sponsoring a by-invitation workshop on the Future of Broadband Regulation, to be held at FCC headquarters on May 29-30, 2014.

IIP organized the workshop and selected (via a public Call for Papers) the academic and government experts who will present research “work-in-progress” to their fellow participants for discussion and critique. Revised and completed papers may be submitted for publication to the Journal of Information Policy.

The workshop will open with a public plenary session in the FCC Meeting Room from 8:45-10:00 AM on May 29. Senior FCC management and other representatives will review some of the policy challenges that the transition to a ubiquitous IP-based broadband network poses.

The workshop will afford FCC staff an opportunity to learn about current academic research and to highlight for the academics issues and questions that might be suitable for further research. The workshop paper presentations will be made in a small-group format.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the appointment of Kim Hart as Press Secretary to Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Hart will serve as Commission Spokeswoman in FCC’s Office of Media Relations, led by Communications Director Shannon Gilson.

Kim Hart previously served as Director of Corporate Communications at Neustar, a Virginia-based information services and analytics company. Before joining Neustar in 2012, Kim was Politico’s Senior Technology Reporter, focusing on policy issues affecting the technology and telecommunications industries.

At Politico, she helped launch the Morning Tech daily newsletter and Politico Pro, the publication’s subscription news service. Previously, she launched and wrote the Hillicon Valley blog for The Hill and covered technology as a business reporter and columnist The Washington Post.

She studied journalism and public relations at the University of Florida and received a master’s degree in public affairs journalism from the University of Maryland. She has taught journalism classes at Georgetown University and George Washington University.

The Federal Communications Commission confirmed the agenda for its May 15 open meeting.

The FCC will consider:

• A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing the DC Circuit Court of Appeals’ remand of portions of the Commission’s 2010 Open Internet Order and proposing enforceable rules to protect and promote the open Internet. The Federal Communications Commission also determined that strict enforcement of the Sunshine Period prohibition on comment would place an unnecessarily restrictive burden on the public, who should have full opportunity to express their views. Therefore, the Commission is waiving the Sunshine Period prohibition until 11:59 pm on May 14, 2014 with respect to this proceeding.
• A Report and Order that provides a limited expansion to the class of wireless microphone users eligible for a license.
• A Report and Order that adopts key policies and rules for the broadcast television spectrum incentive auction, laying the groundwork for an unprecedented, market-driven process for repurposing spectrum for mobile broadband use, and promoting competition and innovation.
• A Report and Order that modifies the Commission’s policies and adopts rules regarding the aggregation of spectrum for mobile wireless services through initial licensing and secondary market transactions to preserve and promote competition.

A record level of early financial support for broadband in schools and libraries has been approved by the E-rate program, the Federal Communications Commission’s program for supporting communications services in these institutions.

Reflecting a dedicated effort by the FCC to get critical funding for broadband to schools and libraries as quickly as possible, the $450 million in funding commitments for broadband is six times the amount approved at this time in 2013 by USAC, the program administrator.

Including other communications services, USAC committed a total of $607 million in support in the first wave of funding for 2014.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine Dialing Services $2,944,000 for allegedly making numerous illegal “robocalls” to mobile phones.

These robocalls contained artificial or prerecorded voice messages on behalf of political campaigns and candidates. The Commission had previously cited Dialing Services for making more than 4.7 million robocalls to mobile phones without consumer permission during the 2012 election cycle.

Dialing Services of Roswell (NM) operates a website that offers robocalling services to third-party “clients,” including political candidates. These clients pay Dialing Services to make calls that deliver an artificial or prerecorded voice message to telephone numbers of the clients’ choosing. The company advertises that through its services, its clients can “Reach thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of customers with your personal message.”

I want to discuss efforts at the Federal Communications Commission that involve libraries. Specifically, I want to talk about our efforts to reboot, reinvigorate, and recharge E-Rate -- or what I like to call E-Rate 2.0. And before I finish, I want to talk about another hot topic before the FCC -- our efforts on network neutrality.

The E-Rate program, as some of you may know, is the nation’s largest educational technology program -- and it’s run by the FCC. E-Rate helps connect all of our schools and libraries to modern communications and the Internet. Our records suggest that 80 percent of schools and libraries believe their broadband connections do not meet their current needs. Eighty percent! So let’s be honest. Those needs are only going to grow.

Nationwide, in nearly two-thirds of communities, libraries are the only place people can access the Internet for free. Libraries have reported to the FCC that every year they see more and more requests to use public access computers and get online. Moreover, more and more information resources are headed to libraries in digital format, putting more pressure than ever before on bandwidth. Plus, for those who lack access to broadband at home, libraries are a lifeline. Because access to broadband is access to opportunity.

Access to broadband in libraries means access to jobs. Consider this -- 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies now require those seeking jobs to apply online. Access to broadband in libraries means access to education. Access to broadband in libraries also means access to information -- for all.

But if we want to keep up and make sure our libraries have the bandwidth necessary to support this opportunity, we need a revitalized E-Rate. We need E-Rate 2.0. There are three essential elements of E-Rate reform: Speed, Simplify, and Spending Smart.

Now I want to end by briefly talking about something else that is before the FCC -- network neutrality. I have real concerns about FCC Chairman Wheeler’s proposal on network neutrality -- which is before the agency right now. His proposal has unleashed a torrent of public response.

Tens of thousands of e-mails, hundreds of calls, commentary all across the Internet. We need to respect that input and we need time for that input. So while I recognize the urgency to move ahead and develop rules with dispatch, I think the greater urgency comes in giving the American public opportunity to speak right now, before we head down this road.

For this reason, I think we should delay our consideration of his rules by a least a month. I believe that rushing headlong into a rulemaking fails to respect the public response to his proposal.

We had an “all-hands” meeting of Federal Communications Commission staff to talk about the agency’s priorities and to provide an update on the Commission’s recent activities.

But the most important message I wanted to convey to FCC staff at this meeting was “thank you.” The public servants of the FCC -- and across government at all levels -- work every day on behalf of the American people with little or no fanfare.

The week is dedicated to making sure public servants across the country get the recognition they deserve. That’s because this is Public Service Recognition Week -- an annual celebration of the men and women who serve the United States as federal, state, county and local government employees.

The E-Rate program, and our work to reform and modernize it, is important.

Until 2019, the E-Rate program will collect and distribute over $12 billion to fund information technology in our nation’s schools and libraries. That’s real money -- $3 billion more than we committed to the Connect America Fund -- and it’s a real chance for us to make a difference.

The Federal Communications Commission needs to seize this opportunity for the kids of the 21st century. We should not settle for the existing system and just tinker around the edges -- we need real reform.

We need a student-centered E-Rate program that focuses on the needs of children. We need a program that replaces today’s complexity with simplicity, one that cuts red tape and makes it easier for schools and libraries to apply. We need a program that more fairly distributes E-Rate funds and puts small, rural schools and libraries on equal footing with their larger, more urban brethren. We need a program that promotes more careful spending, with additional transparency so that parents, educators, and the FCC can see how E-Rate funding is being spent.

Whether you call these reforms a student-centered E-Rate program, the ConnectED Initiative, E- Rate modernization, or E-Rate 2.0, the goal of meaningful change is shared by all schools and libraries, by service providers and equipment vendors, by Democrats and Republicans, by Commissioners and staff. The primary question at this point is how to achieve that goal. And that’s where you come in.