The FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture will start phase II of its work during a May 6 meeting at the FCC, said a notice in Wednesday's Federal Register. “The Task Force will hear overview presentations of 2016 tasks from the Task Force’s three working groups; specifically Working Group 1 -- Optimal Approach to Cybersecurity, Working Group 2 -- Optimal Approach to NG911 Architecture Implementation, and Working 3 -- Optimal Approach to NG911 Resource Allocation.” The group completed a report last year, which it formally approved Jan. 29 (see 1601290051). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at the Jan. 29 meeting that he would make advocacy of more funding for next-generation 911 his top priority every time he appears before Congress in his remaining time as chairman. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. EDT in the Commission Meeting Room.

The FCC will allow a calling party's number to be passed on to local authorities in a New York state community to address threatening calls in a timely manner. The Enlarged City School District of Middletown sought a limited FCC waiver from a rule prohibiting terminating carriers from passing on a calling party's number (CPN) when that party has made a privacy request. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said such a waiver subject to certain safeguards will allow "security and law enforcement personnel to rapidly respond to telephone calls made to Middletown that threaten the safety of school children and employees, without undermining" commission policy objectives. "Middletown will be better able to protect the safety of its 7,500 schoolchildren and 700 employees by reducing the time required to identify and apprehend the perpetrators of threatening phone calls," said an order in docket 91-281 in Thursday's Daily Digest. "Middletown reports that within the last year it has received a dozen 'active shooter and bomb threats' from callers using restricted CPN, triggering lockdown procedures at its schools. Middletown confirms that many of the threatening callers use the CPN restrictions in order to delay authorities from identifying them or their location." Among the safeguards are a prohibition against passing CPNs on to called parties, restrictions on personnel with access to the numbers and a requirement to delete CPN information after a reasonable period of time.

The FCC Technological Advisory Council will meet June 9, the FCC said in a notice in Thursday's Federal Register. The meeting starts at 12:30 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room.

The FCC privacy NPRM is cut-and-paste regulation, said Roslyn Layton, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in a blog post Monday. “There is so much regulation on the books today that federal agencies can essentially copy-paste content from one commission to another, making duplicate regulatory regimes for different industries.” The FCC did exactly that in its “mind-numbing, 147-page-long” privacy NPRM, borrowing rules from the FTC, she said. By copying the FTC rules and applying them to just ISPs, “the FCC effectively insulates established Internet companies from competition by creating new barriers to entry in concentrated advertising markets,” she said. “As is par for the course with this FCC, the commission failed to provide evidence of consumer complaints and did not conduct an investigation to see whether abuse is actually occurring.” The NPRM said the rules were built on authority granted in many sections of the Telecom Act (see 1604040032).

By imposing net neutrality rules on ISPs, but not edge providers like Google and Netflix, the FCC is effectively picking winners in the Internet marketplace, wrote Bronwyn Howell, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in a blog post. “Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was becoming evident that regulators had effectively ‘picked a winner’ in the Internet marketplace by applying the provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act asymmetrically between phone companies and cable companies.” Phone companies were required to provide regulated, below-cost, access to selected “unbundled network elements” to their competitors, while cable operators were not. “Predictably, this significantly dampened phone companies’ incentive to invest in new infrastructure, leaving the market for the taking by cable companies,” she said. “Even if the architects of the 1996 Act did not intend to pick a winner in the Internet marketplace contest, the asymmetric application of the provisions nonetheless ensured that the spoils were unevenly shared.” The FCC fixed this “asymmetry” in 2003 by removing Internet unbundling obligations, she said. “Today, we are witnessing history repeat itself, this time with the Open Internet Order.”

Verizon is buying 24.5 percent of DreamWorks Animation's AwesomenessTV and plans to use it to launch a short-form mobile video service to be shown on Verizon's go90 video affiliate, Verizon said in a news release Wednesday. Verizon President-Product and New Business Innovation Marni Walden said, "The content AwesomenessTV has produced for go90 has exceeded all our expectations with shows such as Guidance and Top Five Live. That's why we want to be in the AwesomenessTV business." Verizon said the new content service, which will have an independent though so-far-unnamed brand, initially will be exclusive to its U.S. platforms, though AwesomenessTV will retain the right to sell it elsewhere in the world. Terms of the purchase weren't disclosed. The company said the deal on close will value AwesomenessTV at $650 million, which Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said would put Verizon's investment at close to $159 million. In a note to investors Wednesday, Fritzsche said the deal points to advertising-supported video service as among Verizon's top strategic focuses, if not paramount, and future tuck-in acquisitions and investments are likely. Macquarie Capital Analyst Amy Yong, in a note to investors, said, "Embracing the mobile ecosystem with Verizon will likely drive [AwesomenessTV's] Gen Z audience to become even larger. This transaction will redefine mobile video content for the millennial audience and positions AwesomenessTV as a top content leader." DreamWorks will remain the majority shareholder, with 51 percent, and Hearst will own the remaining 24.5 percent, Verizon said.

National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative affiliates now can resell the Sling TV over-the-top service, NeoNova, an NRTC broadband division, said in a news release Monday. NeoNova CEO Ray Carey said that “our affiliates are the go-to local providers for new technologies in their serving areas" and the new program represents potential additional revenue and an opportunity "to drive awareness with their customers about new services like Sling TV.”

Telcordia/iconectiv won't show a preference for any telecom service provider (TSP) as the new local number portability administrator, the company said in a proposed code of conduct it submitted to the FCC, posted in docket 95-116 Monday. Among other code provisions it cited, Telcordia/iconectiv also said it wouldn't share any TSP's proprietary information except as needed to perform its LNPA duties or pursuant to its service agreement, nor would it or parent company Ericsson share any confidential information about iconectiv's LNPA business services or operations with any TSP's employees, subject to the same exceptions. In another submission, Telcordia asked the Wireline Bureau to approve the appointment of Jane Mago and Thomas Krattenmaker to serve as unaffiliated voting trustees under an FCC order.

Stakeholders who participated in Wednesday’s White House Rural Council telemedicine event are expected to “report back to the Council in two weeks with thoughts, best practices, action items and pilot project ideas,” NTCA said in a blog post Thursday. It mentioned that officials from NTCA, the administration, the FCC, academia and elsewhere participated. “Building on the Obama administration’s ongoing commitment to expanding access to opportunity through quality, affordable health care, the event highlighted the essential role of telehealth in reaching high-need rural families and communities,” NTCA said. Several NTCA members were present, the group said. “NTCA had been working with the White House Rural Council to host this event because we really do believe that telemedicine can be a game changer for bringing economic development into rural America,” NTCA President Shirley Bloomfield said in a different blog post, calling it a “banner day.” Bloomfield said she had implored stakeholders “to work together to take some next steps and get some real action done before the end of this administration and to leave some good steps for the next administration to build upon.”

The FCC Wireline Bureau approved Vonage's request to obtain phone numbers directly from numbering resource administrators, an agency public notice said Thursday in docket 16-49. The proceeding will be terminated and the docket closed in 60 days if there are no further filings, or -- if there are additional filings -- after 60 days of docket inactivity, the PN said. Vonage had submitted its 152-page application on Feb. 18, the first day interconnected VoIP providers were allowed to seek phone numbers directly under a 2015 FCC order.