Today:  FCC Consumer Alert on Spoofing, FCC Reauthorization and Wireless Deployment Bill Advances, Internet Freedom Appeals Consolidated in 9th Circuit 

FCC Consumer Alert on Spoofing

The FCC warned consumers about “neighbor spoofing” scams where thieves manipulate caller ID information in ways that make calls appear to have been placed locally even if they are not.  In general, scammers use such spoofing to increase the likelihood that consumers pick up the phone and to increase the consumer’s trust in the call.  The FCC offered the following Consumer Tips: 

• Be Aware: Caller ID showing a “local” number no longer means it is necessarily a local caller. 
• Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers.
• Don’t provide any personal information to callers.
• Review call blocking tools provided by your phone company or 3rd party app developers.
• File a complaint with the FCC.

US Congress Advances FCC Reauthorization and Wireless Deployment (Next Generation) Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives sent H.R. 4986 to the Senate for its consideration.  The bill includes, among other things, a reauthorization of the FCC for FY 2019 – FY 2020 and a direction that the FCC craft a national policy for unlicensed spectrum. See the Regulatory Mix dated 3/2/18.

Internet Freedom Appeals Consolidated in 9th Circuit

The US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has selected the 9th Circuit (California) to hear the appeals of the FCC’s Internet Freedom aka Open Internet/Net Neutrality Order.  Petitions were filed in both the DC and 9th Circuits and the panel randomly selected the 9th Circuit to hear all the appeals.  The following parties filed appeals: Mozilla Corp, Vimeo Inc., Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute, State of New York et. al., National Hispanic Media Coalition, Benton Foundation, Free Press, Coalition for Internet Openness, Etsy, Inc., California PUC, and County of Santa Clara.

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s daily 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.