The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
FCC
The FCC has issued a $2,944,000 Notice of Apparent Liability against Dialing Services, LLC for allegedly making numerous illegal “robocalls” to mobile phones. These robocalls contained artificial or prerecorded voice messages on behalf of political campaigns and candidates. In March 2013, Dialing Services received a citation for making more than 4.7 million robocalls to mobile phones without consumers’ permission during the 2012 election cycle. At that time, Dialing Services was warned that if it continued to make unlawful robocalls in the future it could be held liable for penalties up to $16,000 per call. The FCC has now found that Dialing Services apparently continued to engage in the same practice, making at least 184 additional robocalls to consumers’ mobile phones. The $2,944,000 fine is the maximum penalty for these 184 calls.
USAC Lifeline Program
USAC announced two upcoming webinars about the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD). On May 13, it will hold a “NLAD Duplicate Resolution Webinar” that will include an overview of the duplicate resolution process, letters that the Lifeline Program subscribers will receive, and how carriers can pull reports of their customer’s selection as a result of the mailing. On May 20, it will hold a “NLAD Dispute Resolution and De-Enroll Tutorial Webinar” to allow carriers to learn about the dispute resolution error codes and how to pull de-enroll reports using the new automated dispute resolution process.
Nebraska
The PSC opened a docket to investigate and determine whether additional funds from the Enhanced Wireless 911 Fund should be made available to public safety answering points (PSAPs) for costs to implement text to 911 solutions. The PSC seeks comment by June 6, 2014, on the following: (1) The various types of text to 911 solutions available to PSAPs; (2) The cost of implementing and providing a text to 911 solution for PSAPs; (3) Whether such additional funding should be made available to all PSAPs without conditions; and (4) Any other information helpful to the PSC in making a determination.
