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.
US Congress
The US House of Representatives approved, by voice vote, H.R. 3670, the Anti-Spoofing Act. The Act updates the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 (which prohibits entities from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller ID information) to include: (1) persons outside the United States if the recipient is within the United States; and (2) text messages by means of a telephone number and text messaging services. The bill would also expand the categories of IP-enabled voice services that are covered by the law to include any IP-enabled voice service with interconnection capability. (The current statute only applies to interconnected VoIP services as defined by the FCC.) The FCC would have to adopt regulations to implement the amendments within 18 months. The bill has been sent to the Senate, where it was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
FCC
2014 Regulatory Fees
The FCC announced that its FY 2014 Regulatory Fees became effective September 11, 2014, and reminded carriers that the fees must be paid by September 23, 2014. All the fee guides have been updated and are available at http://www.fcc.gov/regfees.
Open Internet/Net Neutrality
The FCC announced a new way to file comments in its Open Internet/Net Neutrality proceeding. It has made available a Common Separated Values (CSV) file template along with instructions. Once completed, the CSV file can be emailed to openinternet@fcc.gov where if it matches the template the individual comments will be filed for the public record with the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System. Commenters emailing the file are asked to use the subject “CSV” and are encouraged to send CSV files of 9MB or less via email.
