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
As part of its effort to help consumers fight unwanted robocalls, the FCC will hold an all-day workshop on September 16, 2015. The workshop will examine the current state of robocall-blocking solutions, the steps industry is taking to protect consumers from unwanted robocalls, and potential solutions to caller ID spoofing. Panelists will represent service providers, developers of call-blocking solutions, consumer groups and others. The FCC recently clarified that there are no legal barriers preventing carriers from offering consumers robocall-blocking technologies. See TMI’s Blog “FCC Acts on Robocalls,” dated 6/22/15. TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see Bulletin dated 7/21/15. The workshop will be streamed live on the FCC’s website; an agenda will be released in the near future.
NANPA
The North American Numbering Plan Administration announced that, as of September 9, 2015, the supply of 500, 533, 544, 566 and 577 NXXs was exhausted. As a result, it has initiated the assignment of 588 NXX codes. In late August, NANPA announced that there were only 30 577-NXXs available for assignment and that the 588 NPA would be used as the next 5XX NPA. See the Regulatory Mix dated 8/31/15.
5XX-NXX codes are used for applications which are non-geographic in nature, are not assigned to rate centers and may or may not traverse the Public Switched Telephone Network, but do require an E.164 addressing scheme. The use of this NANP numbering resource is to communicate with both fixed and mobile devices, some of which may be unattended. This resource may also be used for applications enabling machines, which would include but not be limited to wireless devices and appliances, with the ability to share information with back-office control and data base systems and the people that use them. Service is limited only by terminal and network capabilities and restrictions imposed by the service provider.
Maine
At its September 15, 2015, meeting, the Maine PUC will consider a petition filed by the Public Advocate which requests that the PUC revise its rules governing pole attachment terms, conditions, and practices. The petition is aimed at ensuring that broadband providers have reasonable access to utility poles. The proposal would revise the PUC’s Chapter 880 rules to: (1) provide entities which control utility poles, as well as those seeking to attach their facilities to such poles, with clear guidance as to what terms and conditions of attachment will be presumed reasonable; (2) allow the PUC to continue to review pole attachment disputes on a case by case basis; (3) preserve the PUC’s ability to order the use of different terms and conditions when applying those contained in the rule would produce an unreasonable result; and (4) codify the existing expedited review of pole attachment disputes that the PUC currently employs.
