Telecommunication

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai demanded that the phone industry adopt a robust call authentication system to combat illegal caller ID spoofing and launch that system no later than 2019. Such a system is critical to protecting Americans from scam robocalls. A robust call authentication framework would erode the ability of callers to illegally spoof their Caller ID, which scam artists use to trick Americans into answering their phones when they shouldn’t.

The 20^th Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) elected the first woman to one of five top executive positions in the history of the organization. Member States of ITU, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technology, completed the elections for the posts of ITU Secretary-General, ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) and Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT). The winning candidates are:

Benton Ridge Telephone Company can trace its roots back over 100 years to when it started out as a rural telephone company serving the OH community with the same name. The largest part of the company’s business now, however, is its wireless internet service provider unit known as Watch Communications, which offers service in parts of rural OH, IN and IL. When the company decided to bid – and ultimately won over $52 million – in the Connect America Fund II auction, its plan was to use fixed wireless for the project area.

Over the past several years the Federal Communications Commission has brought sweeping changes to Lifeline, the telecommunications aid program for low-income households. These changes are designed to shift the program’s focus from telephone service to broadband service. Though few would question the need to narrow the digital divide, many (including me) have criticized the way the commission has chosen to do so.

The support structures that assist low-income families cannot work unless those in need have functional means of communication. Doctors monitoring children with fragile health, employers who can offer an extra shift to a struggling worker, nutrition support programs like SNAP which must confirm income eligibility — all these must be able to communicate with a low-income person, often within limited timeframes. Our collective and individual economic well-being is dependent on communications tools.

The Federal Communications Commission is allowing certain rural telecommunications carriers the opportunity to transition from rate-of-return regulation to light-touch incentive regulation for their business data services. Recognizing the importance of business data services to the nation’s economy, the FCC in 2017 modernized its regulation of those services for large carriers – known as price cap carriers – to encourage deployment of modern, packet-based services.

Verizon Wireless service is back up and running "essentially everywhere" throughout the area hit by Hurricane Michael, the company said. "Verizon engineers and fiber crews have been working around the clock after unprecedented damage to our fiber infrastructure caused by the most intense storm in history to make landfall in the Panhandle," Verizon's announcement said.

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to reduce its reimbursement for hearing-impaired phone services that display a call’s text. The FCC could adopt a change in its reimbursement formula within 12 months, it said in the Trump administration’s fall regulatory agenda. The FCC reimburses telecom service providers for hearing- and speech-impaired telephone services. Agency officials, though, are worried that providers are marketing captioned phone services to people who could use cheaper methods, such as amplifying phones, in order to receive larger reimbursements.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Gov Rick Scott (R-FL) have expressed frustration with the slow pace of restoring communications in FL in the wake of Hurricane Michael. What neither Chairman Pai nor Gov Scott mention is their own roll in creating this sorry state of affairs. Their radical deregulation of the telephone industry, despite the lessons of previous natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, guaranteed that providers would chose to cut costs and increase profits rather than invest in hardening networks or emergency preparedness.

I want to share with you a snapshot of what the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai’s leadership is doing to leverage technology to promote public safety.