Consumers have lots of defenses against unwanted robocalls, Verizon said in a blog post Wednesday, the day the FCC said new rules on automated calls are to get a vote at the commission’s June 18 meeting (see 1505270048). “We understand that unwanted robocalls can be a bother, and we stop many robocalls before they reach consumers,” the carrier said. “We monitor our networks to detect spikes in suspicious calls, and then work with law enforcement and with other communications companies to shut down illegal robocallers.” There are “dozens of free call-blocking apps from a wide variety of developers” available on the App Store and Google Play, and CTIA offers a list of apps for all operating systems, Verizon said. The FCC appears poised to stand up to industry in its proposed declaratory ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and the National Association of Consumer Advocates said Thursday in a news release. “We applaud the FCC chairman for upholding the essential consumer protections” in the TCPA, said NCLC attorney Margot Saunders. “The industry petitions would have gutted this key consumer law and exposed consumers to a tsunami of unwanted robocalls and texts to their cell phones.”

The Federal Aviation Administration selected Spok’s enhanced 911 software for several facilities, said a news release from Spok. The software will enable the FAA’s emergency response teams to pinpoint a 911 caller’s exact location, notify appropriate onsite personnel and maintain the safety of FAA employees and visitors, Spok said. The same software already has been implemented at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, it said. Additional rollouts are ongoing at regional FAA facilities in Alaska and Hawaii, and are planned for the FAA headquarters in Washington, plus the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, the release said.

FCC local number portability rules on porting interval and validation requirements take effect June 25 after a summary of the commission's June 20, 2014, order was published in Tuesday's Federal Register. The order adopted several recommendations of the North American Numbering Council (NANC) to make changes to "provisioning flows" intended to improve the process for number porting, which allows consumers to keep their phone numbers when they change carriers but not locations. "These improvements include revising existing processes for cancelling a number port request, clarifying the timeline for re-using disconnected ported numbers, and stopping new service providers from prematurely activating ports," the order said. "We clarify that, notwithstanding the NANC's preference for area code overlays over area code splits, the states still have the option to choose the best means of implementing area code relief for their citizens."

An FCC online system for filing 911 reliability certifications is open for testing, the Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday. The FCC required annual reliability filings due at the agency Oct. 15 in a December 2013 order. "The Bureau invites Covered 911 Service Providers to log in, test the system, practice submitting certification information, and provide feedback within 30 days,” said a notice from the bureau. “Information submitted during the testing period will not count toward Initial Reliability Certifications or bind certifying entities to particular responses and will be deleted when the actual production system opens for submissions.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau notified Wes Yui Chew, Icon Telecom, that he has been suspended from participating in the Lifeline program and the agency is starting a debarment procedure. In April, the Edmond, Oklahoma, man was ordered to serve 48 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and pay a fine of $117,166.48, which is the anticipated cost of his federal imprisonment. Chew had pleaded guilty to charges. Icon participated in the Lifeline program from July 2011 until September 2013, the bureau said Tuesday. “During that time period, you were the sole owner and president of Icon,” the bureau said. On June 12, 2014, you pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering for transferring $20,455,829.10 from an Icon bank account to a personal bank account, despite knowing that Icon had thousands fewer customers than it had reported to the Commission.” As part of the federal action against Chew, he also agreed to forfeit $27 million seized during the investigation, the Department of Justice said.

It's a "shame" the U.S. government has restricted travel to trade shows like CES, where in the past attendance “was considered part of the job,” said CEA CEO Gary Shapiro in Shanghai on Sunday at the first CES Asia. He said CEA has had cooperation from the Chinese government that’s “very happy we’re here” and it wouldn’t be possible to hold CES Asia without its support because the government owns many of the companies and the media. Shapiro said CEA’s strong position on free trade can fall opposite of policies of China and other countries. CEA is very good at separating its role as an association representing U.S. companies and U.S. subsidiaries of global companies, he said. He marveled at Shanghai's infrastructure, including airports, mass transit and hotels, saying: “They’re doing something right here. The fact that they don’t allow Google and Twitter and Facebook and restrict the access of some companies is clearly their right to do as a country.” Espousing the value of an international trade show as a way to learn about other cultures, Shapiro said: “Anybody who thinks that their government has all the answers is probably wrong. I personally believe that if countries are trading, they’re less likely to be fighting.”

The FCC can contribute to the "containment of data breaches by approving the use of automated texts and voice communications to give timely notice of those events," the American Bankers Association responded to an ex parte in docket 02-278. The FCC should grant the association a petition for exemption under the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act because the obstacles have been resolved, as shown in the ex parte letter from the National Consumer Law Center and National Association of Consumer Advocates, said ABA in the docket Friday. NCLC and NACA conceded that automated fraud alert and money transfer messages are appropriate and in consumers' interests and asked that those messages be subject to additional conditions intended to protect the privacy of consumers and avoid inconvenience to unintended recipients, it said.

Applications to the Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program are due July 6, RUS said in Friday's Federal Register. DLT grants are designed to give access to education, training and health care resources for rural Americans, it said. The grants provide financial assistance to encourage and improve telemedicine services and distance learning services in rural areas through the use of telecommunications, computer networks and related advanced technologies to be used by students, teachers, medical professionals and rural residents, said the agency.

Per the FTC’s request, federal courts in New York and Georgia temporarily halted three debt collection operations that allegedly violated federal law by threatening and deceiving consumers via text messages, emails and phone calls, a news release said Thursday. The defendants are known as Premier Debt Acquisitions, The Primary Group and Unified Global Group. The FTC said the defendants used text messages, emails and phone calls to falsely threaten to arrest or sue consumers, unlawfully contacted friends, family members and employers, withheld information consumers needed to confirm or dispute debts, and never identified themselves as debt collectors. The commission said it seeks to permanently end the unlawful practices and charged the defendants with violating the FTC Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. “Legitimate debt collectors know the rules,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. “They can’t harass or lie to you, whether they send a text, email, or call you.” The commissioner vote approving the federal court complaints was unanimous. Unified Global Group had no immediate comment. Premier Debt Acquisitions and The Primary Group couldn't be reached for comment.

Nearly 150 privacy and human rights organizations, technology companies, trade associations and individual security and policy experts sent a joint letter to the White House Tuesday, defending Americans’ right to use strong encryption to protect their data and opposing the mandatory “backdoor” idea that would allow the government to access encrypted data. The debate over encryption was sparked by Apple’s announcement that new iPhones would be encrypted by default, the groups said. In response to law enforcement and intelligence officials, including FBI Director James Comey, who say Congress should legislate government access to encrypted devices, the letter said strong encryption is the “cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security.” It “protects billions of people every day against countless threats -- be they street criminals trying to steal our phones and laptops, computer criminals trying to defraud us, corporate spies trying to obtain our companies’ most valuable trade secrets, repressive governments trying to stifle dissent, or foreign intelligence agencies trying to compromise our and our allies’ most sensitive national security secrets.” They urged President Barack Obama to “reject” any proposal that would require U.S. companies to deliberately weaken the security of their products and to “focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology." Adobe, Apple, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Cisco, CEA, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Internet Association, Microsoft and New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute were among the signees. “The President has been letting his top intelligence and law enforcement officials criticize companies for making their devices more secure, and letting them suggest that Congress should pass anti-encryption, pro-backdoor legislation,” even though “encryption backdoors are bad for privacy, bad for security, bad for human rights, and bad for business,” New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative co-Director Kevin Bankston said in a news release. “Even the White House Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies has joined with most leading security experts to agree that strong encryption of data is necessary to protect against hacking and other computer fraud and abuse,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black in a news release.