The Federal Communications Commission has extended the preliminary determination period for wireless carriers wishing to comply with the digital wiretap act from March 31 to Sept. 30. The public notice lists those carriers that have satisfied the requirements to warrant an extension and those that have not. Those in the second list have until April 25 to supplement their petitions. Anyone wishing to comment on the extension must do so by April 2 with replies due on April 16. The digital wiretap act is formally known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
A Washington law firm is sounding an alarm to rural wireline companies that they may lose their universal-service funding if a proposal advocated by rural telecommunications trade associations and an FCC advisory committee known as the Rural Task Force is adopted. “We are concerned that companies have not fully considered the impact of that aspect of the RTF proposal that would convert [universal-service fund] to a `per line’ basis and port an incumbent’s USF revenue recovery to its competitor,” said Steve Kraskin of Kraskin, Lesse & Cosson.
The FCC has proposed rules meant to make payphone calls to telecommunications relay services the same as payphone calls to other locations. TRS relays conversations between hearing impaired and speech disabled individuals, and the non-disabled. The disabled person calls a TRS center and then a calling assistant translates the call to the non-disabled person. The translation is made by text telephone machines, speech or video relay for sign language. There had been some technical concerns about whether a TRS call could cost the same as a non-TRS call. The FCC’s rules attempt to address these concerns. The rules specifically require that calls to TRS centers cost the same as other payphone calls.
Compiled from wires, news releases and other sources.
