Officials from trade association America’s Credit Unions (ACU) met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about proposals for clamping down on robocalls. “The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the Commission can best achieve a balance that protects consumers from unlawful calls and scams while also ensuring that credit unions are able to communicate with their members without undue litigation risk or the risk of having their lawful calls inadvertently blocked or mislabeled,” according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 02-278. The group opposed a National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) proposal seeking an automated “opt-out mechanism” on every call containing an artificial or prerecorded voice message. The NCLC proposal is “unnecessary” in light of commission rules, which provide “ample mechanisms for consumers to revoke consent,” ACU said.

Petitioners iFixit, Public Resource and Make Community “seek to dramatically rewrite federal law and agency rules by destroying the copyright” to the standards development organizations’ standards, said 17 SDOs in an amicus brief Tuesday (docket 23-1311) in the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. The brief is in support of the FCC. Petitioners allege that the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it amended rules incorporating four new equipment testing standards, and did so without the proper notice and comment protocol (see 2403280002). Using a procedure called “incorporation by reference,” they allege the commission informed the public that copies of the rules were available at its headquarters but didn't say that the rules could be read but not copied. The NPRM also said that copies of the proposed rules were available from the private SDOs that originally published them, the petitioners say. But they allege that these too couldn’t be copied and that they were available only after making a “substantial payment” to the sponsoring SDO. The petitioners ask that the D.C. Circuit compel agencies such as the FCC to post a copy of the SDO’s standard on the agency’s website, “where the electronic copy may be copied, downloaded, and further distributed without limitation,” the amicus brief said. According to the petitioners, this is necessary whenever an agency proposes to incorporate by reference such a standard in a final rule or regulation. But the result would be to make the SDOs’ works, “which indisputably are protected by copyright, available for mass infringement,” said the amicus brief. This would undermine the SDOs’ ability “to fund the creation of these works that yield enormous public benefits,” it said. Joining in the amicus brief were the American National Standards Institute, CTA, IEEE and the Telecommunications Industry Association. Consistent with their public-service missions and nonprofit status, SDOs make standards “easily accessible to the public for free, read-only viewing online,” said the amicus brief. Under the petitioners’ demands, the standards would be posted to an agency’s website “without regard to the SDO’s consent and without any remuneration to the SDO,” the amicus brief alleges. That argument is “contrary to federal law,” it said. The petitioners’ argument, if accepted, also “would undermine the infrastructure of U.S. innovation and the incentive system that are essential to our market-driven economy,” it said.

More than half of telecom and IT engineers believe AI will improve network efficiency by 40% or more and 85% think carriers can monetize AI traffic on their networks, according to a Ciena survey released Wednesday. Carriers expect the financial services sector (46%), followed by media and entertainment (43%) and manufacturing (38%), to generate the most AI traffic, Ciena said. Respondents saw “multiple avenues to generate revenue from AI,” the report said: “Specifically, 40% believe it will be from opening their networks to third-party integrations; 37% believe revenue will come from security and privacy services; the same number (37%) believe it will come from new product offerings; 35% believe it will be from the creation of tailored subscription packages; and 34% believe revenue will be from differentiation on quality of service for connectivity.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau told U.S.-based voice service providers that they may stop carrying Alliant Financial's call traffic following a cease and desist letter sent Monday to Alliant regarding an illegal robocall campaign. The bureau told providers in a public notice that Alliant appeared to originate a "substantial volume of unlawful robocalls related to purported debt consolidation loans." Alliant sent "prerecorded messages claiming to be from One Street Financial, Main Street Financial, and Alliant Financial," said a news release, saying about 78 million calls were placed to consumers between Nov. 1 and Feb. 24. The bureau noted that service members, veterans and their families "face an increased risk from campaigns of this nature." EB's move was part of the bureau's "Spring Cleaning" initiative. “There are scammers who try to exploit people working to get out of debt and veterans and military families are at a higher risk for this kind of fraud,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. "We are putting these bad actors on notice that they can’t keep targeting people with this junk and taking advantage of their attempts to build a better financial future for themselves."

Microwave transmission equipment revenue declined 8% year over year worldwide in Q1, Dell’Oro Group said Monday. “This was a tough quarter” for the sector, said Jimmy Yu, Dell’Oro vice president: “We continue to believe the market environment will strengthen as the year unfolds, but the first half of 2024 is now projected to be much weaker than we initially anticipated.” Lower demand for mobile backhaul drove the decline, the report said. The radio access network equipment market continues to struggle, Dell’Oro said in a report last week. It called the market “a disaster.” The RAN market, including baseband and radio hardware and software, but excluding services, fell as much as 30% in 1Q, the firm said. “We’ve been monitoring the RAN market since … 2000, and the contraction experienced in the first quarter marked the steepest decline in our entire history of covering this market,” Dell’Oro Vice President Stefan Pongratz said. The top five suppliers in Q1, based on worldwide revenue, were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung, the report said.

Alaska Broadband Advocates met with FCC commissioners and staff and discussed “the current disparity between the Lower 48 and Alaska in terms of speed availability, residential package pricing and cost per household,” according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 16-271. For example, a school district’s cost per Mbps of service in Alaska is “200 times more than the median cost in the United States,” they told the FCC. The Alaskans met with Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington and aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks.

U.K.-based Boldyn Networks announced Thursday the close of its purchase of U.S.-based Apogee Telecom, a provider of on-campus connectivity serving the U.S. higher education (HED) market. “Apogee offers managed wireless residential and campus networks, as well as IT solutions, fibre infrastructure as a service, and video services for students, faculty, and staff,” Boldyn said. With the buy, “Boldyn will acquire and continue to serve more than 350 HED customers,” the company said.

Alaska Telecom Association representatives emphasized to the FCC the importance of the Alaska Connect Fund to improving mobile wireless service in the state and other issues. The representatives met with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington. “We urged the Commission to quickly move forward with the Alaska Connect Fund to provide needed certainty to carriers and the consumers they serve in the state,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. USF support is “essential to make service available and affordable in Alaska and the Alaska Connect Fund can build on past successes,” the group said.

New America's Open Technology Institute is raising concerns about the FCC's broadband consumer labels (see 2404100076). In a meeting with Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staff, OTI asked the FCC to issue best practices for formatting and clarify that ISPs "should not block automated collection and access of CSV files by means other than human directed web browser actions," according to an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 22-2. The group also found instances of "label implementation that either undermined the purpose of the rule or raised other concerns." OTI said some labels couldn't be accessed without providing a service address. One provider's plan directed a user to a "pop-up with a large block of 'fine print' rather than the label" on its website, OTI said. It also noted some consumers shopping for services in person "may not be aware" they can ask for a broadband consumer label to compare plans.

The FCC Wireline Bureau made several Rural Digital Opportunity Fund census block groups eligible for other funding programs following letters from Charter and Altice notifying the commission that each company was surrendering some winning bids (see 2405010080). The bureau said in a public notice Friday in docket 19-126 that the carriers "will be subject to penalties" for their defaulted bids.