Government Affairs Blog
March 27, 2015
PROSPECTS FOR THE LOCAL NUMBER PORTABILITY TRANSITION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE
Local number portability is the Congressional mandate that lets you keep your phone number when you switch to a new telephone or wireless service provider. Since the advent of LNP in 1997 the FCC-appointed administrator of the national LNP database that processes number porting requests has been Neustar, Inc. However, the FCC just awarded the database responsibility to a new administrator: Telcordia Technologies, a subsidiary of Ericsson AB.
March 15, 2015
Summary of the FCC’s Open Internet Order
This is an historic ruling because it purports to “regulate the Internet.” Here’s a summary.
First, the Order reclassifies fixed and mobile broadband Internet access service as a “telecommunications service.” Under that classification the Commission may regulate the service under “Title II,” the common carrier portion of the Communications Act. Title II, which was originally intended to regulate telephone companies and later extended to wireless carriers, authorizes the Commission to prohibit “unreasonable discrimination” in a carrier’s terms of service. Earlier FCC attempts to regulate ISP service were called “net neutrality.”
March 10, 2015
DID AT&T VIOLATE CALEA?
Service providers should carefully validate government requests for surveillance to avoid liability from both the courts and the FCC. A pending FCC proceeding sheds light on the subject.
The story begins with a look at the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Communication service providers subject to CALEA must activate their CALEA-mandated electronic surveillance capabilities only in response to a court order “or other lawful authorization.” But who decides what is a “lawful authorization”?
February 17, 2015
HOW WOULD THE FCC’S OPEN INTERNET PROPOSAL IMPACT THE TRENDS OF LAWFUL SURVEILLANCE AND PRIVACY?
On February 4th the FCC unveiled its latest proposal to establish regulations it considers necessary for the future success of broadband Internet access.
The “Open Internet” policy would declare broadband Internet access a “telecommunication service” under Title II of the Communications Act, thereby giving the FCC jurisdiction to regulate the service as “common carriage.” The Title II jurisdiction would cover all ISP platforms, including DSL, cable modem, wireless, and Wi-Fi. The jurisdiction would not cover services such as VoIP, which run over the broadband pipes.
How would the Open Internet policy impact the trends of lawful surveillance and subscriber privacy?
January 12, 2015
VERIZON’S ENCRYPTION POLICY MAY RESOLVE A CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIVACY AND PUBLIC SAFETY
In October of 2014, Apple and Google announced new privacy enhancements to their handset encryption policies that was considered so obstructive to public safety that FBI Director James Comey began visiting Capitol Hill to demand a legislative response. A few months later, Verizon modified its handset encryption in a way that helped both privacy and public safety. Is the encryption fight suddenly resolved?