Telecommunication

Huawei, perhaps buoyed by Trump Administration reported easing-up on potential sanctions on the Chinese telecommunication company, has "supplemented the record" in its fight against a Federal Communications Commission proposal banning telecoms with "suspect" tech from broadband deployment subsidies in the Universal Service Fund (USF) program.

Sens Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Rob Portman (R-OH), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Angus King (I-ME) introduced the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act to strengthen the nation’s criminal justice system. This bipartisan bill would help families keep in touch with their incarcerated family members, and would address long-standing concerns about the prohibitively expensive and predatory price of phone calls that incarcerated individuals at correctional facilities across the US are forced to pay.

For people in prisons and jails, voicemail can still be very useful. Corrio is a Washington state-based company co-founded by Alex Peder, a former inmate himself, that offers a service that lets inmates call a special number assigned to them and then record a voice message that gets texted as a link to any person the prison or jail has allowed them to contact. It connects the facility’s network to Corrio’s private switch network, and a person on the outside can send a regular text to the inmate, as well as record voicemails.

The Federal Communications Commission is renewing the charter of the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment for a two-year period. The purpose of the Committee is to make recommendations to the FCC on how to empower disadvantaged communities and accelerate the entry of small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities, into the media, digital news and information, and audio and video programming industries, including as owners, suppliers, and employees.

After high-tech phone network outages hit major US cities in 1991, the Federal Communications Commission chartered an advisory group to help the agency troubleshoot emerging technology issues. Yet instead of helping solve problems, this industry-dominated group has at times been a barrier to strengthening the security of America’s communications. 

Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks sent letters to executives of 14 major phone and voice service providers seeking details about their plans to offer free, default call blocking services to consumers to combat disruptive and dangerous robocalls. “Carriers made clear to the Commission: they want to offer call blocking services to consumers by default. My colleagues and I made clear to carriers: they should not charge consumers for these services. The Commission has acted. Now it is industry’s turn to put these new tools to work for consumers.

Apparently, some of the world’s biggest tech companies have told their employees to stop talking about technology and technical standards with counterparts at Huawei in response to the recent US blacklisting of the Chinese tech firm. Chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm, mobile research firm InterDigital Wireless, and South Korean carrier LG Uplus have restricted employees from informal conversations with Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker. Such discussions are a routine part of international meetings where engineers gather to set technical standards for communications

On Friday, May 31, the Federal Communications Commission launched a proceeding to seek comment on establishing an overall cap on the Universal Service Fund (USF). USF programs provide subsidies that make telecommunications and broadband services more available and affordable for millions of Americans. The NPRM asks a lot of questions over how to cap the programs. But a crucial one we ask: Does this NPRM actually move the U.S. closer to closing the digital divide?

The Federal Communications Commission voted to make clear that voice service providers may aggressively block unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers. The FCC approved a Declaratory Ruling to affirm that voice service providers may, as the default, block unwanted calls based on reasonable call analytics, as long as their customers are informed and have the opportunity to opt out of the blocking. This action empowers providers to protect their customers from unwanted robocalls before those calls even reach the customers’ phones.

Joe Franell is a fan of Huawei’s equipment. As the CEO of Eastern Oregon Telecom, he’s responsible for providing internet to about 4,000 customers, many in small communities or remote farmland. He’s been lucky: the Huawei equipment he uses has never failed, which he hasn’t been able to say about everything else in the company’s network.