The Regulatory Mix, TMI’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 a TMI Briefing.

The Regulatory Mix will be on hiatus Wednesday, 11/23/16, through Monday, 11/28/16, in observance of Thanksgiving

FCC Verizon/XO Merger

The FCC approved Verizon’s acquisition of licenses and authorizations held by XO Communications.  The FCC found that both the benefits and the harms of the transaction were relatively limited, but that, on balance, the potential public interest benefits outweigh the potential public interest harms.  The FCC concluded that the transaction was unlikely to have material adverse competitive effects for any of these services in any geographic area where the applicants operate.  Specifically, the FCC found that: (1) that Verizon’s acquisition of XO within Verizon’s ILEC territory will have a de minimis impact on competition in the provision of business data services (BDS); (2) the transaction fails to harm BDS competition outside of Verizon’s ILEC territory; and (3) the transaction will not result in any transaction-specific competitive harm from the loss of XO as an independent provider of Ethernet-over-Copper (EoC) and other commercial services or as an alleged “maverick” among CLECs.  The FCC also concluded that the loss of XO as an independent route into Verizon’s network is unlikely to affect Verizon’s incentive or ability to impose paid-peering arrangements on interconnecting networks, edge providers, or content delivery networks for access to Verizon’s network and that the transaction is unlikely to have a negative  impact on competition in the market for IP transit services.

FCC Robotext Advisory

The FCC issued an Enforcement Advisory to promote understanding of the clear limits on the use of autodialed text messages, known as robotexts.  The Advisory notes that the FCC has held that the restrictions on making autodialed calls to cell phones encompass both voice calls and texts.  Accordingly, text messages sent to cell phones using any automatic telephone dialing system are subject to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA).  (The TCPA places limits on autodialed calls and prerecorded- or artificial-voice calls to wireless numbers; emergency numbers; guest or patient rooms at hospitals, health care facilities, elderly homes, or similar establishments; and to any service for which the called party is charged for the call.)  The FCC’s rules restrict the use of prerecorded-voice calls and automatic telephone dialing systems, including those that deliver robotexts.  The Advisory reviews relevant FCC rules including those addressing exceptions to the prohibition, how consumer consent is obtained, and texts to reassigned wireless numbers.  The FCC said its Enforcement Bureau will “rigorously enforce” the TCPA and the FCC’s implementing rules.