Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council President Kim Keenan said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to revamp the Lifeline program (see 1505280037) is a positive move. “Americans are increasingly relying on broadband to access education, jobs, healthcare, and other essential services, but a disproportionate number of minorities and economically vulnerable consumers rely on their smartphones to access these services,” Keenan said in a news release Thursday. “Closing the digital divide and getting everyone connected is critical and the Chairman’s actions today are a major step in the right direction.” MMTC was part of a 36-member coalition that recently called for modernization of the Lifeline program (see 1505150049). NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said Lifeline support is only part of the answer for increased adoption. “In high-cost areas, the Lifeline program and other USF programs can only be effective to the extent that a network for consumer use is there in the first instance and if the services offered on that network are reasonably comparable in price and quality to those in urban areas,” Bloomfield said. "If we don’t tackle and overcome these threshold issues in high-cost areas -- if we don’t set up a sufficiently funded and predictable high-cost mechanism that is updated for a broadband world -- consumers of all kinds in rural America, low-income and otherwise, could be left behind notwithstanding any Lifeline changes that might follow."

Comcast officials updated FCC staffers on the company's "Internet Essentials" broadband-adoption efforts during discussions they had on the commission's Lifeline USF program, said a Thursday ex parte filing on a meeting they had. Internet Essentials offers students and their families in more than 30,000 schools access to broadband service for $9.95 per month, Internet-ready computers for less than $150, and options for digital literacy training, the filing said. The program connected more than 450,000 households with more than 1.8 million Americans to the Internet, the filing said. Comcast spent $225 million in cash and in-kind support to promote digital literacy and readiness training and education reaching more than 3.1 million people, it said. Comcast officials also outlined their efforts to make the program's application process more user friendly. Meanwhile, Charter Communications officials meeting with FCC officials said Charter supported transitioning Lifeline to provide discounts for broadband and discussed barriers to company participation in the program, a Thursday ex parte filing said.

Consumers have lots of defenses against unwanted robocalls, Verizon said in a blog post Wednesday, the day the FCC said new rules on automated calls are to get a vote at the commission’s June 18 meeting (see 1505270048). “We understand that unwanted robocalls can be a bother, and we stop many robocalls before they reach consumers,” the carrier said. “We monitor our networks to detect spikes in suspicious calls, and then work with law enforcement and with other communications companies to shut down illegal robocallers.” There are “dozens of free call-blocking apps from a wide variety of developers” available on the App Store and Google Play, and CTIA offers a list of apps for all operating systems, Verizon said. The FCC appears poised to stand up to industry in its proposed declaratory ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and the National Association of Consumer Advocates said Thursday in a news release. “We applaud the FCC chairman for upholding the essential consumer protections” in the TCPA, said NCLC attorney Margot Saunders. “The industry petitions would have gutted this key consumer law and exposed consumers to a tsunami of unwanted robocalls and texts to their cell phones.”

The Federal Aviation Administration selected Spok’s enhanced 911 software for several facilities, said a news release from Spok. The software will enable the FAA’s emergency response teams to pinpoint a 911 caller’s exact location, notify appropriate onsite personnel and maintain the safety of FAA employees and visitors, Spok said. The same software already has been implemented at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, it said. Additional rollouts are ongoing at regional FAA facilities in Alaska and Hawaii, and are planned for the FAA headquarters in Washington, plus the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, the release said.

FCC local number portability rules on porting interval and validation requirements take effect June 25 after a summary of the commission's June 20, 2014, order was published in Tuesday's Federal Register. The order adopted several recommendations of the North American Numbering Council (NANC) to make changes to "provisioning flows" intended to improve the process for number porting, which allows consumers to keep their phone numbers when they change carriers but not locations. "These improvements include revising existing processes for cancelling a number port request, clarifying the timeline for re-using disconnected ported numbers, and stopping new service providers from prematurely activating ports," the order said. "We clarify that, notwithstanding the NANC's preference for area code overlays over area code splits, the states still have the option to choose the best means of implementing area code relief for their citizens."

An FCC online system for filing 911 reliability certifications is open for testing, the Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday. The FCC required annual reliability filings due at the agency Oct. 15 in a December 2013 order. "The Bureau invites Covered 911 Service Providers to log in, test the system, practice submitting certification information, and provide feedback within 30 days,” said a notice from the bureau. “Information submitted during the testing period will not count toward Initial Reliability Certifications or bind certifying entities to particular responses and will be deleted when the actual production system opens for submissions.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau notified Wes Yui Chew, Icon Telecom, that he has been suspended from participating in the Lifeline program and the agency is starting a debarment procedure. In April, the Edmond, Oklahoma, man was ordered to serve 48 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and pay a fine of $117,166.48, which is the anticipated cost of his federal imprisonment. Chew had pleaded guilty to charges. Icon participated in the Lifeline program from July 2011 until September 2013, the bureau said Tuesday. “During that time period, you were the sole owner and president of Icon,” the bureau said. On June 12, 2014, you pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering for transferring $20,455,829.10 from an Icon bank account to a personal bank account, despite knowing that Icon had thousands fewer customers than it had reported to the Commission.” As part of the federal action against Chew, he also agreed to forfeit $27 million seized during the investigation, the Department of Justice said.

It's a "shame" the U.S. government has restricted travel to trade shows like CES, where in the past attendance “was considered part of the job,” said CEA CEO Gary Shapiro in Shanghai on Sunday at the first CES Asia. He said CEA has had cooperation from the Chinese government that’s “very happy we’re here” and it wouldn’t be possible to hold CES Asia without its support because the government owns many of the companies and the media. Shapiro said CEA’s strong position on free trade can fall opposite of policies of China and other countries. CEA is very good at separating its role as an association representing U.S. companies and U.S. subsidiaries of global companies, he said. He marveled at Shanghai's infrastructure, including airports, mass transit and hotels, saying: “They’re doing something right here. The fact that they don’t allow Google and Twitter and Facebook and restrict the access of some companies is clearly their right to do as a country.” Espousing the value of an international trade show as a way to learn about other cultures, Shapiro said: “Anybody who thinks that their government has all the answers is probably wrong. I personally believe that if countries are trading, they’re less likely to be fighting.”

Applications to the Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program are due July 6, RUS said in Friday's Federal Register. DLT grants are designed to give access to education, training and health care resources for rural Americans, it said. The grants provide financial assistance to encourage and improve telemedicine services and distance learning services in rural areas through the use of telecommunications, computer networks and related advanced technologies to be used by students, teachers, medical professionals and rural residents, said the agency.

The FCC can contribute to the "containment of data breaches by approving the use of automated texts and voice communications to give timely notice of those events," the American Bankers Association responded to an ex parte in docket 02-278. The FCC should grant the association a petition for exemption under the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act because the obstacles have been resolved, as shown in the ex parte letter from the National Consumer Law Center and National Association of Consumer Advocates, said ABA in the docket Friday. NCLC and NACA conceded that automated fraud alert and money transfer messages are appropriate and in consumers' interests and asked that those messages be subject to additional conditions intended to protect the privacy of consumers and avoid inconvenience to unintended recipients, it said.