Today's Regulatory Mix: FCC Announces Tentative Agenda For November Open Meeting, FTC Releases 2020 Do Not Call Data Book, USDA Announces Additional Broadband Funding
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released the tentative agenda for the FCC’s November 18, 2020, Open Meeting. The items are as follows:
The Federal Trade Commission issued the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2020. The Data Book contains information about the DNC Registry for FY 2020 (from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020). It also provides the most recent fiscal year information available on robocall complaints, the types of calls consumers reported to the FTC, and a complete state-by-state analysis. To make the information in the FY 2020 Data Book more accessible for the public, updated and interactive DNC data dashboard visualizations are available at ftc.gov/exploredata.
The data show that the number of active registrations on the DNC Registry increased by two million over the past year, while the total number of consumer complaints decreased for the third year in a row. Specifically, at the end of FY 2020, the DNC Registry contained 241.5 million actively registered phone numbers, up from 239.5 million at the end of FY 2019. The number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls decreased, from 5.4 million in FY 2019 to nearly four million in FY 2020. Of those complaints, 71% were about robocalls, roughly the same percentage as last year, and 24% were about live telemarketing.
In FY 2020, the FTC 2.8 million complaints about robocalls, down from 3.79 million in FY 2019. However, for every month in the fiscal year, robocalls—defined under FTC regulations as calls delivering a prerecorded message—made up the majority of consumer complaints about DNC violations, with the most, 332,000, coming in September of this year.
The FTC also reported that imposters were the topic of the robocalls consumers reported the most, with more than 423,000 complaints received. Warranties and protection plans comprised the second-most commonly reported topic, with consumers filing more than 237,000 robocall complaints. Calls about supposed debt-reduction made up the third-most commonly reported topic, followed by complaints about medical and prescription issues, and computers and technical support.
New Hampshire continues to top the nation in active DNC registrations per capita (93,791). The states reporting the most complaints per 100,000 population changed in FY 2020: the top five states were Arizona (1,770 per 100k population), Virginia (1,668 per 100k population), Maryland (1,644 per 100k population), Delaware (1,608 per 100k population), and Colorado (1,504 per 100k population).
The USDA announced additional broadband funding grants in Iowa and Kentucky.
In Iowa:
In Kentucky:
Peoples Telecom LLC will use a $2.4 million ReConnect grant and a $2.4 million ReConnect loan to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network. This network will connect 1,618 people, 25 businesses, two farms, a public school, a post office and a fire station to high-speed broadband internet in Rockcastle, Perry, Breathitt and Lee counties in Kentucky.
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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.