US Senate Passes TRACED Act

In response to the Senate’s passage of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, which targets illegal robocalls. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr each issued statements of support. 

Chairman Pai released a statement saying, in part: “I commend the U.S. Senate for passing the TRACED Act and Senators Thune and Markey for leading this bipartisan effort. The TRACED Act would help strengthen the FCC’s ability to combat illegal robocalls, and we would welcome these additional tools to fight this scourge. Further powers like increased fines, longer statutes of limitations, and removing citation requirements which obligate us to warn some robocallers before penalizing them, will significantly improve our already strong robocall enforcement efforts.  I also welcome the Act’s provisions that would increase coordination with state Attorneys General.”

Commissioner Carr released the following statement:  “Americans are fed up with robocalls. They are tired of scam artists and fraudsters placing illegal calls to their phones at all hours of the day and night. So I want to commend Senator Thune and Senator Markey for their bipartisan leadership. Their TRACED Act provides the FCC with additional authorities and tools so that we can continue our crack down on these annoying calls. I look forward to continuing to work with members of Congress and my colleagues as we combat unlawful robocalls.”

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 The Regulatory Mix Today:  US Senate Passes TRACED Act, FCC CAF II Awards In NY

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FCC CAF II Awards In NY

The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau announced it is  ready to authorize Connect America Fund Phase II support for the New York winning bidders identified below.  To be authorized to receive their support amounts, the bidder must submit acceptable irrevocable standby letter(s) of credit and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter(s) from their legal counsel in accordance with the FCC’s instructions prior to 6:00 p.m. ET on June 11, 2019.

FCC staff is reviewing information that is submitted with long-form applications on a rolling basis.  Accordingly, a long-form applicant that was not included in this Public Notice but that has submitted all the required information will be included in a future Public Notice once staff finalizes its review of the long-form application.

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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.