Today:  FCC LNPA Transition, FCC to Release List of Handsets for Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Speed Tests 

FCC LNPA Transition

The FCC announced the successful completion of the transition to the new Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA), Telcordia Technologies, doing business as iconectiv. The LNPA operates the system that allows consumers to keep their telephone numbers when they switch communications service providers, thereby promoting consumer choice and competition among those companies. It also provides critical services to our nation’s law enforcement and public safety communities.   FCC Chairman Pai said: “I’m pleased that, after years of hard work and extensive preparation, we have successfully transitioned to a new and less expensive LNPA. This change should reduce costs for consumers. I applaud the work of all involved in this complex endeavor, especially the dedicated staff in the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, and Office of General Counsel. I thank them for working tirelessly to ensure a seamless and on-time transition for the communications industry, the law enforcement and public safety communities, and most importantly, the American public.”

FCC to Release List of Handsets For Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Speed Tests

The Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (Task Force), in conjunction with the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (Bureaus), announced its intention to publicly release a list of the handsets designated by each mobile wireless provider in the Mobility Fund Phase II (MF-II) challenge process for challengers to use when conducting speed tests in areas deemed presumptively ineligible for MF-II support.  Currently, this information is available only through the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) challenge portal, which challengers may access only after agreeing to keep the information confidential. The Task Force and Bureaus believe that making this information public would cause no competitive harm to the providers and could assist those challengers that are governmental entities in assessing whether they wish to engage in the challenge process and register for the USAC challenge portal.

The Task Force and Bureaus noted that when submitting standardized coverage data on qualified 4G LTE service for use in the MF-II challenge process, each mobile wireless provider also submitted a list of readily-available handset models that challengers could use to test such coverage.  Because providers considered the coverage data to be competitively sensitive or proprietary, the FCC required that challengers access such data only through the USAC portal after agreeing to keep the information obtained through the portal confidential. Because the provider handset lists were submitted with the coverage data, they currently are available only through the USAC portal and subject to the same confidentiality agreement. 

Providers were not required to include with their handset list submissions a request that such information be withheld from public inspection.  Accordingly, the FCC will now allow providers an opportunity to request confidentiality and to file an objection and explain why release of the list will reveal information not already made available to the public and will harm it  competitively.  Requests for confidential treatment must be submitted no later than June 4, 2018.

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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.