Representatives of Cisco, Fortinet and Microsoft supported a pilot program that would invest in cybersecurity services for eligible K-12 schools and libraries (see 2307120027), in a meeting with aides to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington. The companies urged the commission “to act quickly to advance the proposal to a formal rulemaking,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-184.

ClearCaptions raised concerns about the FCC's ratemaking for IP captioned telephone services, in a meeting with FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 03-123. The company said it "has every economic incentive not to provide purpose-built customer premises equipment" because it "has to absorb the expense" of training and installing the equipment. ClearCaptions said it preferred providing IP CTS "through end of life" and with the use of communications assistants (CA) because "they perform better on some calls" than automatic speech recognition (ASR). The company also backed the use of a blended rate for IP CTS, saying it "makes continued provision of CA IP CTS possible because retaining customers, and the margin on ASR, offsets any loss on those calls that require CAs to maintain service quality."

The FTC and FCC signed a renewed memorandum of understanding with members of the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network (UCENet), a network of global agencies and organizations working to combat unsolicited messages, said a news release Thursday (see 1606140041). The MOU will "promote cross-border collaboration to combat unsolicited communications, including email and text spam, scams, and illegal telemarketing." UCENet is "a critical forum for regulatory enforcers to learn from each other and build impactful, cooperative relationships," FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal said. The FTC is "committed to using all of its tools to fight robocalls and other unsolicited communications that try to prey on consumers,” said Chairwoman Lina Khan.

Calix, working with manufacturer Jabil, is committed to helping ISPs address the Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements imposed on participants in the broadband, equity, access and deployment program, Calix said Friday. “With an initial investment from Calix of $4 million to $6 million and an ongoing spend for operations of $10 million to $15 million per year, Calix manufacturing solutions providers will hire workers in manufacturing, operations, engineering, quality assurance, and administrative roles as they ramp US production of Calix optical solutions -- a first step in the company’s BABA initiative,” the company said. Jabil will produce optical network terminals (ONTs) and optical line terminals in Michigan, Gemtek will produce ONTs at a California facility and Hisense Broadband will produce optical modules at a New Jersey plant, Calix said.

Public Knowledge urged the FCC to adopt a disparate impact standard in its rules combatting digital discrimination, in a meeting with the task force to prevent digital discrimination (see 2302220045). "There is no case law that suggests ... that disparate impact on the basis of income discrimination would be unconstitutional," the group said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 22-69. PK asked the commission to make the disparate impact standard severable if a court prohibits use of the standard on the basis of race. It also raised concerns about the rule applying to all ISPs in a service area, saying numerous ISPs have "suggested that as long as a single carrier is available in the area subject to digital discrimination, then all other carriers should be free to discriminate by refusing to serve the area."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Johannes Bauer, director of the Quello Center at Michigan State University, will serve a one-year term as chief economist at the FCC. Among Bauer’s areas of focus at the center are 5G, the IoT, AI, broadband access and deployment and digital equity, the FCC said Thursday. “Bauer will bring understanding of the latest research related to industry, foster the professional development of the FCC’s economists, and ensure economic and data analysis of the highest quality for the benefit of the consumer,” Rosenworcel said.

The FCC committed more than $40.8 million in additional Emergency Connectivity Fund support Wednesday. The new funding will support 220 schools and school districts, seven libraries and library systems, and three consortiums, said a news release. “With the school year in full swing, the FCC continues its work to ensure students everywhere have access to broadband connections and digital tools they need to successfully complete their schoolwork," said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

A coalition of financial trade groups raised concerns with the FCC about its proposed rules to give consumers the ability to revoke prior express consent through any reasonable means under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 2308150071). Use only session initiation protocol codes 608 and 603+ for labeling blocked calls, the American Bankers Association, ACA International, American Financial Services Association, Credit Union National Association and National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions told an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, per an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-97. The groups also warned that financial institutions and other companies may not be able to honor revocation requests within 24 hours because they may come from multiple channels rather than in a centralized manner. The groups expressed "strong support for actions to remove bad actors and illegal traffic from the network," saying it's "key that the legitimate, often critical, calls that our members place are completed."

An FCC order partially rejecting and partially granting petitions on certain parts of its 2022 broadband labeling order is effective Monday, said a notice for that day's Federal Register (see 2308290049).

The FCC fined Stage 2 Networks $308,451 for failing to timely file annual and quarterly telecom reporting worksheets, per a notice of apparent liability Thursday. The company failed to file four annual worksheets and 15 quarterly worksheets between February 2020 and August, the order said. Stage 2 also failed to fully respond to an Enforcement Bureau letter of inquiry regarding the filing of annual customer proprietary network information certifications and maintaining current information in the commission's registration system.