Today:  FCC Commissioner O’Rielly Announces Wireline Advisor, FCC Sets Effective Date for Public Safety Entities to License Units on Federal Channels, FCC Announces Real-Time Text Education Day for PSAPs  

FCC Commissioner O’Rielly Announces Wireline Advisor

FCC Commissioner O’Rielly has announced  he has hired Arielle Roth as wireline advisor in his office.  Commissioner O’Rielly commented, “I am so pleased that Ms. Roth has agreed to join my office. Her expertise in wireline communications issues and firm commitment to free market principles will be extremely valuable in the many matters before the Commission. I am very confident that the addition of Ms. Roth will strengthen my immensely talented team.”  Ms. Roth is currently employed as legal advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau where she provides counsel on universal service and pricing matters.  Prior to this position, she served as a legal fellow for the Hudson Institute’s Center for the Economics of the Internet. She will be replacing Amy Bender, who will depart the Commission on August 31, 2018.

FCC Sets Effective Date for Public Safety Entities to License Units on Federal Channels

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) announced the effective date of  the Federal Communications Commission’s (Commission) new procedure for public safety entities to license mobile and portable radios on the federal interoperability channels.  The procedures became effective on August 29, 2018. 

On March 22, 2018, the Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) released an Order which amended the Commission’s rules to conform to a new streamlined procedure for non-federal public safety entities to license and use the forty channels that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) designates for interoperability.  The Bureau and OET made several rule changes in the Order including adopting a new Section which lists the federal interoperability channels to which the new streamlining process applies.

An applicant seeking to license mobile or portable radios on any of the federal interoperability channels must include a concurrence letter from its Statewide Interoperability Coordinator (SWIC) or state appointed official with its application.  The requirement for applicants to obtain written concurrence from its SWIC or state appointed official and include that concurrence with its application constitutes a new information collection subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA).  The Bureau may now grant applications for the federal interoperability channels from eligible public safety entities that include a concurrence letter from their SWIC or state appointed official with their application.

FCC Announces Real-Time Text Education Day for PSAPs

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a workshop to educate public safety answering points (PSAPs) on real-time text (RTT).  The PSAP RTT Education Day will take place on Tuesday, October 2, 2018, at the FCC’s headquarters.  The PSAP RTT Education Day will provide information to PSAPs and other emergency communications systems about RTT features and benefits for emergency response personnel and consumers (including consumers with disabilities); best practices for processing RTT requests from service providers; and ways to implement the RTT service feature.  Among other things, panels will address regulatory policy, PSAPs’ experiences with RTT testing, and RTT infrastructure issues.  There will be a live demonstration of the use of RTT and opportunities for interaction by and with the audience. 

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.