Rulemaking

Interested parties have filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding proposed changes to the requirements for ownership reports.  In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released in January, the FCC asked for comment on several issues related to the ownership reports filed by broadcast licensees and by others with attributable interests in licensees.

Among…
Continue Reading Commenters Debate FCC Proposals on Ownership Reporting

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”) proposing to require facilities-based originating long-distance voice service providers to collect, retain and report on phone call answer rate data to rural and non-rural areas.  The NPRM also proposes to prohibit both originating and intermediate voice service providers from causing so-called “false audible ringing,” in which the caller hears the phone ring before the terminating provider has signaled that the called party has actually been alerted to the incoming call.  The NPRM was adopted in response to concerns expressed in various quarters, including on Capitol Hill, about the reliability and quality of long-distance telephone calls to rural parts of the U.S. 
Continue Reading FCC Proposes New Rules to Address Call Completion Complaints

Tomorrow, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will publish comment deadlines for its recently-released Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that begins the process of reviewing its policies regarding the allocation of mobile spectrum.   The full text of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available here.  While the simultaneous adoption of proposed rules for an incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum arguably has attracted greater attention, this review of broader spectrum policy will have an important bearing on all future spectrum auctions and wireless transactions.

The FCC last reviewed its mobile spectrum holdings policies more than a decade ago, before the recent explosion of smartphones and tablets and the bandwidth-intensive services used on those devices by millions of Americans.  By assessing its rules now, the FCC hopes to provide clear and predictable “rules of the road” for this and other future auctions. Comments are due November 23, 2012, and reply comments are due December 24, 2012.Continue Reading SpectrumWatch: FCC Initiates Review of Mobile Spectrum Holdings Policies