In late June, the Biden administration took the widely anticipated step of announcing initial financial award amounts made under the auspices of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Broadband Equity, Access and...more
At the Federal Communication Commission’s (“FCC”) June 8 Open Meeting, the Commissioners voted to adopt a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“Notice”) designed to clarify and expand upon the ability of consumers to decide...more
Prompted by a rapid increase in frequency, sophistication, and scale of data leaks and data breach legislation in recent years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously voted to kick off a proceeding aimed at...more
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) restricts many types of calls to residential and wireless telephone numbers if they are made without the prior express consent of the called party or a statutory exemption...more
On November 21, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a Declaratory Ruling and Order (Declaratory Ruling), in which it determined that “ringless voicemail” to wireless phones requires prior consumer...more
For those regularly monitoring the FCC’s various TCPA dockets, you now have a new docket to follow: CG Docket No. 21-402. The FCC announced on September 27, 2022 that all Commissioners had voted to commence a new robotext...more
On July 12, 2022, Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., and Katie Porter, D-Calif. introduced H.R. 8334 in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill would...more
Recently, on May 20, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) issued a Report and Order (“Order”), as well as a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (all available here), with a plain objective: to “take further...more
Consistent with its implementation obligations under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Department of Commerce...more
Reacting quickly to a joint request by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (collectively, the Health Agencies) last Thursday, the FCC released a Public...more
5/5/2022
/ Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Comment Period ,
Consent ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
FCC ,
Medicaid ,
Public Comment ,
Public Notice ,
Robocalling ,
Sovereign Immunity ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages
Spectrum management in the United States is a hydra-headed challenge — there are technical, policy, political and financial dimensions to the ongoing process of identifying spectrum bands where spectrum can be reallocated or...more
The FCC’s TCPA dockets did not witness many developments from the beginning of 2022 until February. However, beginning in February and into March, Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s office and the Enforcement Bureau were busy...more
Over the last several years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been taking a more active role both in anticipating the need for ever greater communications network security measures necessary to counter threats...more
3/7/2022
/ Comment Period ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Management ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
FCC ,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ,
NIST ,
Notice of Inquiry ,
Popular ,
Wireless Industry ,
Wireless Technology
After years of discussion and planning, the FCC’s Reassigned Numbers Database opened for commercial use on November 1, 2021. Now business callers can register for a paid subscription with the FCC’s designated Administrator,...more
During his presidential campaign, President Biden committed “to build back better in rural America” by “expand[ing] broadband, or wireless broadband via 5G, to every American.” Last month, President Biden renewed his focus on...more
10/8/2021
/ 5G Network ,
Biden Administration ,
Broadband ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Executive Orders ,
FCC ,
National Security ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Telecommunications ,
Wireless Industry ,
Wireless Technology
The FCC recently announced a public comment period for a new Petition for Declaratory Ruling that seeks to have the FCC “clarify that delivery of a voice message directly to a voicemail box through ringless voicemail (RVM)...more
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to slap a Virginia political firm and two of its principals with a $5,134,500 fine for placing over one thousand prerecorded phone calls to cell phones across the country...more
After adopting orders reflecting the majority of implementation deadlines set by the TRACED Act and the Supreme Court’s highly anticipated TCPA decision interpreting the statutory definition of automatic telephone dialing...more
In an interesting decision from the District Court of Oregon, United States Magistrate Judge Youlee Yim You recommended granting a motion to deny class certification where uncertainty about the appropriate classification of a...more
The TRACED Act’s December 30, 2020 deadline was not the end of the FCC’s recent series of actions to bring more clarity to certain forms of TCPA exemptions. Most recently, on January 15, 2021, the FCC issued a Declaratory...more
Some welcome the New Year with new goals and new plans while others – the FCC, in particular, welcomes the New Year by wrapping up TCPA rulemakings and issuing other rulings. As expected, a number of TRACED Act items were...more
The FCC in 2016 determined that the federal government was not a “person” subject to the TCPA, and that by extension, federal contractors working within the scope of their delegated authority were also not bound by TCPA...more
Over the years, one of the biggest challenges many businesses face when assessing TCPA risks posed by a new calling or texting campaign has been determining whether the proposed use case can defensibly rely on one of the...more
On September 21, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau issued a declaratory ruling clarifying that businesses advertised via fax should not face “sender liability” for unsolicited faxes sent without prior...more
As we previewed recently, the FCC adopted a set of rule amendments through a Third Report and Order for its “call blocking by default” framework on July 16, 2020. These rules focus on two safe harbors potentially shielding...more