167 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION + + + + + CONSUMER ADVISORY COMMITTEE + + + + + MEETING + + + + + MONDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 + + + + + The Advisory Committee met in the Commissioners Meeting Room, located at 445 12th Street, S.W., Washington, D.C., at 9:00 a.m., Steve Pociask, Chairman, presiding. COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: STEVE POCIASK, Committee Chairman DEBRA R. BERLYN, National Consumers League LEIGH FOLEY, National Association of Broadcasters B. LYNN FOLLANSBEE, USTelecom MATTHEW GERST, CTIA JONATHON HAUENSCHILD, American Legislative Exchange Council KYLE J. HILDEBRAND, serving individually as a subject-matter expert, Special Government Employee * BRIAN HURLEY, America's Communications Association - ACA Connects THADDEUS JOHNSON, National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates JOHNNY KAMPIS, serving individually as a subject- matter expert, Special Government Employee ERIC KOCH, serving individually as a subject- matter expert, Special Government Employee NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com IRENE LEECH, Consumer Federation of America VONDA LONG-DILLARD, AT&T KATIE MCAULIFFE, Americans for Tax Reform * STEVEN MORRIS, NCTA  The Internet and Television Association RACHEL NEMETH, Consumer Technology Association SHIRLEY ROOKER, Call for Action MICHAEL SANTORELLI, serving individually as a subject-matter expert, Special Government Employee BARRY UMANSKY, Digital Policy Institute OLIVIA WEIN, National Consumer Law Center BRIAN YOUNG, National Consumers League BOHDAN ZACHARY, Milwaukee PBS COMMISSION STAFF: SCOTT MARSHALL, Designated Federal Official CHRISTINE CLEARWATER, Deputy Designated Federal Official PAM ARLUK EDUARD BARTHOLME KIRK BURGEE DIANE BURSTEIN ZAC CHAMP MARLENE DORTCH BARBARA ESBIN GARNET HANLY LORI MAARBJERG JEFFREY PRINCE KAREN SCHROEDER SHERYL SEGAL MARK STONE PATRICK WEBRE *Present by teleconference CONTENTS Welcome & Call to Order Steve Pociask, CAC Chairperson and Debra Berlyn, CAC Vice Chairperson 5 Introductions & Meeting Logistics Steve Pociask & Scott Marshall, CAC DFO 5 Remarks of Jeffrey Prince, FCC Chief Economist and Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University 10 Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Update Patrick Webre, Chief, CGB 19 Mark Stone, Deputy Chief, CGB 22 Barbara Esbin, Deputy Chief, CGB 25 Diane Burstein, Deputy Chief, CGB 30 Eduard Bartholme, Associate Chief, CGB 36 Zac Champ, Chief of Staff, CGB 46 Break Ban on Malicious Caller ID Spoofing & Foreign Robocalls Presenter: Pam Arluk, Chief, Compensation Policy Division, WCB 64 Report on Deployment and Implementation of Call Blocking and Caller ID Authentication Presenter: Karen Schroeder, CGB 71 Update on Digital Opportunity Data Collection Presenters: Kirk Burgee, Chief of Staff, WCB; Garnet Hanly, Chief, Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division, WTB 97 Update on Pending Legislation of Interest to Consumers Presenter: Lori Maarbjerg, Office of Legislative Affairs 121 Update on Electronic Comment Filing System Redesign Presenter: ECFS Redevelopment Team 133 Consideration of Robocall Blocking Recommendation Presenters: Brian Young, National Consumers League and Sam Brinton, The Trevor Project, Co-Chairs of the Robocall Blocking Working Group 149 Comments from the Public 156 CAC Member Discussion & Next Meeting 157 Adjournment 167 PROCEEDINGS 9:06 a.m. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, well, let's get started. So I'm Steve Pociask. I'm with the American Consumer Institute and welcome, everyone, to the Consumer Advisory Committee meeting. You know, before we get started here, I want to just recognize a couple people in the room. We have Scott Marshall, our trusted and true contact here at the FCC. And also Christina Clearwater, she's the new Deputy Designated Federal Officer for the Communications Advisory -- I mean the Consumer Advisory Committee. So we're going to start off today's meeting with just introductions, and we'll go around the room. In addition to that, I have a sign in sheet if you could just -- we'll start this way, if we could just check your name if you're in. And then after we go through the room, I'd like to just see if there's anyone else on the phone who is joining us as well. So with that, let me turn it over to Debra. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Good morning. Am I on? CHAIR POCIASK: No. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Can't tell. Good morning. Camera's on, voice? CHAIR POCIASK: No. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Action? Okay, we got it? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Good morning. I'm Debbie Berlyn representing the National Consumer's League and Vice Chair. MEMBER UMANSKY: Good morning as well. It's Barry Umansky with the Digital Policy Institute. MEMBER KOCH: State Senator Eric Koch of Indiana serving as a special government employee and subject matter expert. MEMBER HAUENSCHILD: Jonathon Hauenschild from the American Legislative Exchange Council. MEMBER WEIN: Olivia Wein, National Consumer Law Center. MEMBER MORRIS: Steve Morris, NCTA. MEMBER GERST: Matt Gerst with CTIA. MEMBER ZACHARY: Bohdan Zachary, Milwaukee PBS. MEMBER NEMETH: Rachel Nemeth, CTA. MEMBER SANTORELLI: Michael Santorelli serving individually, but affiliated with the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School. MEMBER JOHNSON: Thaddeus Johnson, NASUA. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Vonda Long, AT&T. MEMBER YOUNG: Brian Young with the National Consumers League. MEMBER HURLEY: Brian Hurley with ACA Connects. MEMBER FOLEY: Leigh Foley with the National Association of Broadcasters. MEMBER ROOKER: Shirley Rooker with Call for Action. MEMBER LEECH: Irene Leech representing the Consumer Federation of America. MEMBER KAMPIS: Johnny Kampis serving individually, affiliated with the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. MS. CLEARWATER: Christina Clearwater. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. And then of course, Scott Marshall. So -- let me -- MR. MARSHALL: I'm asleep on the switch. CHAIR POCIASK: It's all good. So is there anyone on the call who's joining us today? MEMBER HILDEBRAND: Steve, Kyle Hildebrand serving as a special government employee. CHAIR POCIASK: Anyone else? MEMBER MCAULIFFE: Yes, hi. This is Katie McAuliffe, Digital Liberty and Americans for Tax Reform. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Last call, anyone else on the line? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So before we get started, too, I just want to recognize the National Broadcast Association for providing us with breakfast and lunch today, very nice, thank you. Also just a point of etiquette, too, now and then, we all want to get an opportunity to speak up. So just turn your cards up this direction so you can be recognized rather than just having a free for all. All right, so with that, I guess I'll turn your attention to the agenda. We have a lot of interesting things to do. We have some great presentations. And in fact we have a recommendation as well that would be introduced towards the end of the day, so please stick around. That's an important vote, and it also reflects a whole lot of hard work and commitment to, you know, sort of a dedicated effort. And so we definitely want to recognize that. So anyway, with that, I'd like to get started. I guess, do we have our initial speaker here today? Okay. So with that, let me turn it over to Jeffrey Prince. He's the FCC Chief Economist and Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business in Indiana University. Did you have slides? Or you can join us right up here. DR. PRINCE: Yes, that'd be great. CHAIR POCIASK: Just an interesting fact, when we started the Institute, my co-founder was previously a professor from Indiana. And yes, he happened to be a Chief Economist at the FCC and the Wireline Bureau Chief was then the Common Carrier Bureau as well. So welcome aboard. I think Indiana's got a soft spot here at the FCC. DR. PRINCE: I think that's right. And I think it was only five years that David Waterman was the Chief Economist here who is also -- he's emeritus now at Indiana, but yes, we have a longstanding tradition of involvement with the FCC. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. So I think maybe the best thing for me to do just so you know kind of a little bit about me and my background and you know, how I might be of any use if you have anything you'd like to speak with me about is, you know, I'm an economist by training, of course. I am an empirical economist, so I do a lot of data work, particularly with analytics, econometrics applied to industry analysis. And I've done a lot on demand analysis. So I'm interested in things like internet demand issues, provision issues. So I have done a lot of work on digital divide in the past and then demand for high technology products in the telecommunications space. So that's kind of where my research background overlaps a lot with some of the interests of the FCC. I've only been here, this is now the beginning of my third week, so I don't want to pretend that I've got this all figured out yet. But I have been trying to talk around and get a sense for, you know, what are the key issues that the Commission is focused on, and where might I be the most useful. As of right now, of course, this could change. As you all know, the kind of merger analysis says kind of move past the FCC. So in some ways this is good for me because it opens up a lot of kind of new opportunities rather than me coming in very late on that big task. So some of the things that have caught my attention, I know there's a big data collection effort underway by the Commission. It's kind of an overlap between what everyone knows as the 477, but then there's now kind of updated information they'd like to get moving forward. But I think now has the acronym DODC, the Digital Opportunity Data Collection. So I can see myself getting involved with something like that. I know there's also the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which is a big project going on. I can see myself getting involved with that. I think, you know, there's a lot of ongoing issues there. And then one other thing that got my attention at least in the early stages is a potential kind of I guess acceleration of the white papers that the FCC produces. I think there is a real comparative advantage for me coming from academia. This is what I do is research papers. And I think there's real interest at the Commission to try and produce more of these. And so I'd like to try and get that a little bit more formalized, kind of get the process in place and really try and get involved with that during my year here. So encourage some of the younger staff to produce some and, you know, build on the ideas that they've already put forth. And you know, keep encouraging people to put out new ideas that might have general benefit. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. There's certainly many other projects that the Commission has going on. I'm sure I'll get involved a little bit with the C-Band issues, things like that. But those are the ones where at least as of right now I'm in the process of getting involved, and I can see myself having some long-term involvement in those amongst others. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Do we have any questions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: I do want to ask one thing in regard to -- I know you do interesting a lot of the demand analysis and issues such as that. Any consideration of like doing like consumer welfare measurements and things of that sort as a sort of a test on how, you know, what's, you know, a test on a public policy or -- DR. PRINCE: Oh, absolutely. Yes, that's consumer welfare issues have certainly come into play in some of my work. And to the extent that it would be relevant for policy analysis, I'd certainly be interested in doing that type of work. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Irene? DR. PRINCE: Yes? MEMBER LEECH: I'm wondering whether you have access to any kind of consumer complaint data and if there are any trends and so forth that you might be able to look at there, or if there is any way to get consumers to tell you things more often so that it could be more useful? DR. PRINCE: So I mean, the short answer is I haven't seen it yet. I haven't really gotten into -- through the data yet. But I'd certainly be interested in that. I could certainly be on the lookout to see if that might be an opportunity for the Commission to be looking at those kind of data. CHAIR POCIASK: All right, Steven? MEMBER MORRIS: So the Commission in the last year or so has created a whole bureau or office of economic analysis. CHAIR POCIASK: Raise your hand. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: You're not on. MEMBER MORRIS: In the last year or so the Commission created a whole office of economic analysis. Do you have a sense of how that changes the role of chief economist, or whether it has no effect? How you might work with them? DR. PRINCE: Yes, that's a great question. I mean, unfortunately, it's difficult for me to have ample perspective on kind of how it was before other than just a little bit of hearsay from a few that have been here for a while. My sense is that there's a lot of enthusiasm about the restructuring. You know, I think the -- I think Jerry Ellig did a piece on this, basically looking at where would economics be more effective if you had economists distributed across the different bureaus, or if you had them concentrated as we do now. And it seemed that the conclusion was that they would be more effective in the current structure. I obviously can't empirically give you answer to that. But I can say that I think it's actually made my life relatively easy to get started because I kind of know who I need to be talking to and I've already now met with a lot of people, and I kind of understand what my role is pretty quickly. So that's been a positive thing for me. And I'm ready to get my hands dirty and get moving on things. But obviously the first few weeks is kind of learning the lay of the land. And I think the structure actually has made that easier, at least from my perspective. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. On the line, Steve, Katie, anyone have any questions? Anyone else in the room? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Thank you, Jeffrey. I appreciate it. DR. PRINCE: Thank you. I appreciate your time. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: All right. So moving ahead on the agenda then, we're going to get a briefing update from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. (Off-microphone comments.) CHAIR POCIASK: We're about five minutes early. Well, look, I mean, they're on the way down, so they're supposed to be here in five minutes. So if anyone wants to grab a cup of coffee or anything, let's just get right back real quick. (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 9:20 a.m. and resumed at 9:25 a.m.) CHAIR POCIASK: All right, let's get started. All right, so now we're going to get an update from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. And starting us off today will be Patrick Webre, the Chief. Patrick? MR. WEBRE: Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fall meeting of the Consumer Advisory Committee. I know that this summer's been a very busy time for you on your critical call list, call blocking working group under the leadership of Brian Young of the National Consumers League and Sam Brinton of the Trevor Project. Many hours were spent, and I know this firsthand from talking to Scott, many hours were spent developing a recommendation which the Full Committee will consider this morning. In June, the Commission asked for advice concerning how consumers should be notified when their calls are blocked. We also sought input on the types of numbers that should be included on a critical calls list. In addition, the Commission asked about how 9-1-1 numbers and government emergency numbers should be defined. The CAC's past work has been very helpful as we address the robocalls issue. And we look forward to hearing more from you about -- on this subject. Thanks, again, for all your work on the recommendation before you today. I also look forward to the launch of the Caller ID Authentication Working Group, which will be coming up for our next meeting. They will develop a recommendation for your December meeting regarding consumer education surrounding the implementation of SHAKEN and STIR. Turning to your agenda today, Karen Schroeder from CGB's Consumer Policy Division will be back to talk to you about a robocalls blocking report that the Commission's June order directed the Commission staff to prepare. The Commission specifically cited the CAC's recommendation that urged us to study the effectiveness of call blocking services, methods, and technologies. Karen will talk with you about how we plan to collect information for the first report that's due to the Commission in June of 2020. We will also have a second report due to the Commission in June of 2021. Later today, our Office of Legislative Affairs will provide a legislative update on robocalls and other consumer related topics like safeguarding consumer privacy. Staff from the Wireline Competition Bureau will discuss recent work regarding the banning of malicious caller ID spoofing and foreign robocalls -- robocalls originating from overseas. You'll also hear about a new initiative, the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, which is a collaborative effort to provide more granular and accurate data regarding the availability of broadband services throughout the country. And finally you will be briefed on the redesign of the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System, or ECFS. The CAC's input was very helpful to us when we redesigned our online consumer complaint system and our consumer help center. We hope you'll be able to provide us with your valuable council regarding the ECFS redesign as well. So that's it for me for now. Again, I appreciate all of your hard work and I look forward to your recommendations. As is the usual custom here, CGB senior staff will provide you with a short update concerning their respective areas of responsibility. So we'll start that off with Mark Stone who is a Deputy Bureau Chief. He oversees our Consumer Policy Division. So I'll turn it over to Mark. Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Patrick. (Applause.) MR. STONE: Good morning, nice to see all of you here for your second meeting. Since your last meeting in June, we've been very busy on robocalls policy and rulemaking. As you're very aware, the Commission just after your last meeting took strong action to fight illegal robocalls by allowing voice service providers to block certain calls on their customers' behalf by default. In other words, without their customers having to opt in to blocking. But seeking to balance the consumer desire to stop illegal robocalls with the desire to not block good calls, the Commission sought comment on how it might protect important calls so that critical calls aren't blocked. Now, we know you've been working hard on this issue to advise us, so we look forward to hearing your recommendation on that. In that same June action, the FCC directed the Consumer Bureau, in coordination with some other Bureaus, to compile two reports on the state of robocall blocking tools amongst other things. Karen Schroeder, as Patrick mentioned, will be here to talk to you a little bit about that today, and we look forward to getting your advice on that. Turning to another large robocalls project that I've mentioned before, the Reassigned Numbers Database. We continue our work on that project being advised by another advisory committee, the North American Numbering Counsel. Once operational, that database which the Commission established in December of 2018 will enable callers to identify numbers that have been reassigned before they make calls so that they can determine the actual number, the consumer they want to reach is at and avoid reaching consumers who have received the reassigned numbers, but don't want to receive that call. So then Nancy is helping us work through technical and funding issues. We expect its recommendation in the next couple of months, at which point we'll seek comment on key issues and move towards a procurement for an administrator of that database. Finally, I want to mention one area of CGB that we don't always highlight, and that's our Reference Information Center through the RIC, as we call it. CGB serves as the Commission's official records custodian and hosts a lot of different important records. As part of that role, the RIC, in coordination with our Secretary's Office and our IT folks help manage the Electronic Comment Filing System, or ECFS. So we're glad our ECFS redevelopment team is here this morning to talk to you about getting your advice on upcoming improvements to this critical system. So with that, I'll turn it over to Barbara. Thanks again for all the help you do, all the help you give us. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Mark. (Applause.) MS. ESBIN: All right, there's more than one. Good morning, and again, welcome to the second meeting. In June, I explained that I oversee the governmental affairs portfolio in CGB. And that involves the work of two different divisions, the Office of Native Affairs and Policy and the Intergovernmental Affairs Office. So I'm going to start with ONAP, and ONAP has been very busy throughout the summer. Together with other Bureaus, it has continued the Commission's outreach to tribes and tribal organizations, holding additional tribal workshops in Norman, Oklahoma, Billings, Montana, and two additional workshops planned for the fall. The Commission uses these workshops to provide presentations on a broad range of important Agency programs and policies. That's deployment of communications infrastructure and services in tribal communities. Recent and upcoming events include a heavy emphasis on the recently created Rural Tribal Priority Window for new licenses in the Educational Broadband Service portion of the 2.5 GHz band which has the potential to significantly increase the deployment and adoption of modern communication services on underserved and unserved tribal lands. ONAP and the Wireline and Wireless Bureaus will also be making several presentations at the September 23rd to 24th National Tribal Broadband Summit sponsored by the Departments of Education and the Interior and the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences. The Chairman will be making a keynote address at this event as well I believe on September 23rd. It's been hosted at the Department of Interior if any of you are interested, you can sign up and attend. ONAP staff participated in and presented at multiple events held by external tribal organizations including the National Tribal Telecom Association held a tribal engineering and broadband summit this spring in Mascalero, New Mexico. They attended the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians midyear convention in Spokane, Washington. Also this summer the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes summer conference in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and the Native American Development Corporation annual convention in July. In terms of policy work, ONAP staff reviewed and made contributions to a variety of reports to Congress and federal rulemaking items such as Report on Broadband Deployment in Indian Country, Report on Promoting Broadband Internet Access Service for Veterans, Spectrum Partitioning, Desegregation, and Leasing NPRM, Educational Broadband Service Report and Order, Connected Care Pilot NPRM, Rural Digital Opportunity Fund NPRM, and the Digital Opportunity Data Collection Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. ONAP also oversees the Native Nations Communications Task Force, which has been busy in completing its first report to the Commission on Obstacles to Deployment of Broadband in Indian Country. We expect the report to be finalized early this fall. And the group will meet again by telephone September 24th, and in person here on November 5th to 6th. The Intergovernmental Affairs Office has also been busy. And they've attended or presented at multiple events held by state and local government organizations, including the National Association of Attorneys General, Consumer Protection spring conference, National Association of Counties annual, National Association of Regulatory Commissioners summer policy summit, and the National Governors Association summer meeting. I chair, like ONAP oversees an Advisory Committee, the Intergovernmental Advisory Committee. They met here in June. They're finishing up their term which will end at the end of this month. And they're working on some finalizing some outstanding tasks. And these will include a report on How to Identify State, Local, and Tribal Regulatory Barriers to Provision of Telemedicine, recommend best practices to ensure that non-English speaking communities receive emergency alerts through multilingual alerting, recommend best practices for fine-tuning state, local, tribal coordination for disaster preparation, response, and restoration, and best practices for communications between state emergency managers and EAS state emergency communications committees to ensure that EAS procedures, including initiation and cancellation of actual alerts and tests, are mutually understood. So my people have been really busy. It's been a long summer. And I will turn it over to Diane Burstein. CHAIR POCIASK: Diane Burstein, yes. And she, too, is a Deputy Chief at -- yes, thank you, Barbara. MS. ESBIN: Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: So Diane is also Deputy Chief over at the Consumer Government Affairs Bureau. Diane? MS. BURSTEIN: Good morning, thank you for having me back here today. I'm Diane Burstein and in my role as Deputy Bureau Chief of CGB, I help to oversee the Disability Rights Office. And I'm happy to be here today to update you on some of the developments since I spoke with you last in June. And actually it was early in June. Since then, there have been a number of different meetings that folks in the Disability Rights Office have attended as part of their outreach effort to various different consumer groups. And one of the meetings occurred in June after this meeting where Chairman Pai announced the winners of the 2019 Chairman's Award for Advancement and Accessibility, also known as the Chairman's AAA. It celebrates outstanding private and public sector ventures as part of the Commission's continuing efforts to facilitate ongoing exchanges among the telecommunications industry, assistive technology companies and developers, government representatives, and consumers to share best practices and solutions for accessible communications technologies. The winners this year were Cisco for text-to-speech functionality in their 8800 series phones and Microsoft, Tobii, and EyeTech which developed a USB human interface device standard for eye trackers. So nominations for this upcoming period in 2020 will be announced or the nomination period, so please stay tuned for that. As far as the accessibility of FCC programs go, in August, we announced or issued a public notice seeking comments on the FCC's programs and activities, the accessibility of our own programs and activities which federal agencies are required to do. Federal agencies must make their programs and activities accessible to people with disabilities in order to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. And the FCC has to review its own programs every three years. So there is an update now to its Section 504 Handbook which contains guidance on the provision of accommodations for the Commission's programs and activities, procedures for securing reasonable accommodations, and information about disability and accessibility. Comments on that are due October 21st. Another -- a number of other activities occurred in the emergency information area, as Barbara had mentioned, that the Disability Rights Office was involved in. On August 7th, FEMA had a nationwide EAS test conducted in conjunction with the FCC. DRO issued several reminders about the need to make that EAS test accessible to people with disabilities and also encourage the public to report back on any issues that might have arisen with that EAS test. So we're looking at that now. Also in August, the CGB issued a public notice reminding video programmers and distributors about the need to make emergency information accessible to people who are deaf or blind or visually impaired or hard of hearing. Emergency information is not the same thing as EAS. In fact, it's important critical details about ongoing emergencies that may not trigger the EAS system. And this issue took on significance with the arrival of Hurricane Dorian and various concerns about the large population living in its potential path. Some other areas that we were involved in this summer was working on issues related to hearing aid compatibility rules and some upcoming deadlines in that area. By September 3rd, wireless service providers must post on their websites expanded information about their handsets hearing aid compatibility capabilities and retain certain records. And by October, wireless service providers must file their annual certifications of compliance with the FCC's hearing aid compatibility rules. A number of other items dealing with the telecommunications relay services came out this summer. On June 28th, CGB released an order establishing the permeant compensation rates to be paid for all TRS for the period July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020. The order also established the total size of the TRS fund for the year and the contribution factor. And in August, we issued a series of public notices seeking comment on a number of applications to provide Internet protocol caption telephone service. Comments on those are upcoming as well. And the deaf/blind equipment distribution program, in mid-June CGB released a public notice that announced the allocation of funding for the National Deaf/Blind Equipment Program for the 2019/2020 fund year. And also which provides $10 million for this program, by the way. And later, we released a public notice announcing the two new providers in Kentucky and Illinois where the existing participants had exited the program. There are some upcoming deadlines for video programing area as well. In June, the media bureau released a public notice inviting comment on Pluto TVs request for a temporary waiver of the rules requiring closed captioning of video programing on the Internet on certain platforms in which users can access Pluto TV's content. Those comments are due October 24th, and replies are due November 7th. CGB also released a public notice inviting public comment on a petition for declaratory ruling and rulemaking filed by a coalition of consumers and academic organizations regarding the quality of live captioning and the use of automatic speech recognition technology. And comments on those are due October 15th and replies October 30th. And finally we have an upcoming meeting of the Disability Advisory Committee which is September 24th. And the agenda for that will be -- you can find that on the DAC's webpage. Those are just a few of the highlights, and thanks for letting me address you this morning. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Diane. MS. BERNSTEIN: Next, I'll turn it over to Ed. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: And now, we have Ed Bartholme. He's the Associate Chief at Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. MR. BARTHOLME: Good morning, everybody. To start off, I want to, again, thank you, just reiterate how much we appreciate the time that you share with us, the effort you put into the thoughtful recommendations that you pass. And I know that many of you have been active over the last three months and have put a lot of time into the recommendation that'll be considered later today. So thank you for that. We did have a busy summer in outreach and education. On the outreach front, we conducted one of our FCC rural tours through the Midwest with stops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And that was in later June. And I'm actually leaving with some colleagues this evening for our next rural tour, which is through Nebraska and Kansas. And we'll start tomorrow and run through Saturday. Hopefully, in the future, we can maybe talk about scheduling one of these meetings right at the end of a rural tour as opposed to like the day before we leave so that we can share -- tell you how great it went while it's fresh on our minds, but the timing has worked out that way for the last two CAC meetings. In June, we also fully launched our Supermarket Outreach Program. So we've partnered with NAAC and in California and Las Vegas, we have done Train the Trainer events with some volunteers that staff, what they call Hope Booths. And if you think of a normal grocery store where there's a customer service kiosk, they've sort of ripped out that kiosk and filled it with volunteers with educational literature and consumer information. And we work with them to train volunteers so that they can answer questions about robocalls. We make our materials available in those booths in four of the most commonly spoken Asian and Pacific Island languages as well as Spanish and English. And as Diane shared, we had a successful Chairman's AAA Awards event also in June. Another area of focus on the outreach front for us over the last few months has been enhancing our engagement with libraries. So in June, we displayed and spoke at the ALA conference, which was here in D.C. this year. We've done a series of webinars with reference librarians to cover important consumer topics like robocalls. We've also teed up and shared information with them about the broadcast transition and the thought that, you know, if you can't find your TV station, you might pop in the library and say, hey, what happened to channel three or four or whatever. So they'll be ready to answer questions and help people navigate that situation. We did do some lifeline awareness week messaging in September. And we are actually working more closely with USAC to develop some educational materials on the National Verifier as it rolls out to more states. And thank you to Olivia for teeing up that relationship there. We appreciate that. On the education front -- actually one more thing on outreach. We did start earlier this month a series of monthly partner outreach calls. So it's basically an open phone bridge. Outreach staff is sending out an email to everyone on our outreach list. So if you're not getting them, let us know, we're happy to add you. We're going to cover a different consumer topic each month and share some other updates. So this past month, we talked about communicating during an emergency which was very timely given things that were happening. And then, talked about the upcoming rural tour and things along those lines. Exciting education project that we launched over the summer is our scam glossary. So if you go to the Consumer Help Center, you can find the link to the scam glossary, and it an alphabetical catalogue of some of the more common phone scams. If anyone has a scam that starts with Q or Z, I would love to talk to you. We do still have a few letters missing. Maybe we can run some sort of contest, although I think scammers might pick up on that and get the wrong intonation there. So we're -- we've got what we think is a pretty good catalogue of stuff. If you find stuff that you think is missing, please reach out and let us know. And we're -- all of those are short of short blurbs, and they link to other more detailed content, most of which is on our site, some of it's on our colleagues at the FTC's site. And I want to acknowledge our stellar summer intern, Gus Menny who was the project lead on that and helped us get that out the door. So thanks, Gus. We also launched a new series of Consumer Help Center posts that detail a scam, break it down and include actual scam audio. So we're really happy that we're able to now let consumers not only read through and understand the scam, but listen to the scam so they can hear how that call will start. Following after the June workshop that I think Barbara mentioned, where IGA and Public Safety talked about emergency alerting, we really ramped up our language efforts around our emergency communication tips. So they are now available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and French. And those are all audio, 30 second and 60 second PSAs. They've all been uploaded to NAB's PSA site. We also proactively have started reaching out to state broadcasters that are potentially in the path of a storm to remind them that these exist, to tell them where they can find them, and they can grab those and play the languages that are most relevant in their community, even if it's an English language broadcaster, they may find use for playing Spanish or some of the other languages based on the situation. And I also want to acknowledge the efforts and partnership with our colleagues in DRO, because in addition to all of those languages and audio, we have an ASL video that shares those communication tips as well. So that community can benefit from that information also. And today we are launching a consumer guide on phone port-out scams. This has been a very heavily covered in the news media over the summer. This is where people go into a cell phone service provider basically convince them that they're someone else and then get their phone number transferred to a device in their possession. This really plays on the rise and the importance of two-factor authentications for access to financial accounts, social media accounts. There have been a number of stories where people have lost a significant amount of money as a result of this. So we've put out some consumer education to keep people on top of port-out scams. So we're educating people on how they can protect themselves. Another interesting thing that we've started to do over the summer is expand our printed materials to now include versions in Hmong. So that's another language where we've got some of our most popular scam guides that people can now order and we'll have at events as we travel. Since we met in June, I've also started to be more involved with our Consumer Complaints and Inquiries Division. I think I got that backwards, it's Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division. But they are the people that staff the call centers. So when your call 888-CALLFCC, that's who you're talking to. They also take the online complaint forms that people submit through the fcc.gov/complaints. They are continuing to streamline internal processes as you all know, many of you have been on the CAC for a while. You've been instrumental in helping this CICD staff to think through changes, tweaks, improvements. We welcome that continued engagement, that continued interaction. If you have ideas, if you have concerns, if you're hearing about things that you don't think we're covering from an education standpoint or that you think the complaint center might be hearing about, reach out. Let's have a conversation, and let's make sure that that's on our radar as well. Stay in touch. If you're not already in touch, please reach out and get in touch. I know most everyone at the table, and I've enjoyed working with you, and I hope we can continue to do so. If you have events that we can support or participate in, let us know. And if you have ideas about future education topics, please let us know. So thank you for your time this morning. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Ed. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: May I ask a question? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, yes. Yes, just -- yes, we're going to get questions at the end -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: -- but if you have a quick one -- okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Well, we could -- he's going to start. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. Well, so let's turn it over now to Zac Champ. He's the Chief of Staff. MR. CHAMP: Good morning, everyone. My name is Zac Champ. Oh, I've got a placard, nice. So you may not have met me in this capacity, but I'm relatively new to the FCC, started this spring. I want to thank you all on the CAC for your time and effort and expertise. A little bit about my role, just look at me as another point of entry to the Bureau. We heard great things from all of my colleagues about all the work they're doing. If you're a little confused where to go, who to reach out to, please see me as a resource for that. I'll make sure that you find the right folks if you're looking for meetings, those sorts of things in the Bureau, or if you have other questions about the FCC as a whole. Beyond that, I just wanted to introduce myself. Thank you, again, for the work you're doing. Look at me as a resource, again. And as was mentioned, we are available for questions if you all have those. We're around, we can take those now as well. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So yes, actually so now we have six speakers. So if you have questions on anything that's been presented here, we have the experts in the room, we can bring them forward. So all right. Well, go ahead, Debra. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I have a question for Ed. Calling Ed. So Ed, I'm interested in the rural tour. And just wanted to know what you're doing on the rural tour? And you know, are -- maybe you can just tell us a little bit more about --- I know your next one that you've got, but maybe you can just tell us a little bit about what you did on the previous rural tour? MR. BARTHOLME: So it does involve a lot of driving. That might not surprise you. (Laughter.) MR. BARTHOLME: We were able to identify a GPS inaccuracy when we were in Georgia earlier this year that led us to a brick wall. And we were like, I don't know that that's a good route to take. So lots of things. But mainly what we try to do is reach out to and work with partner organizations to establish local events where we invite the community to come in. We talk to them about pocketbook issues. As it might not surprise anyone, robocalls are a concern for people. So we hear about robocalls. And then we share with them ways they can protect themselves, things they can do, things that the FCC's doing to help protect them. On the upcoming tour that we're leaving on later today, we have some great partner coordinated events. I don't think AARP is here this morning, probably because they're working hard to make sure this partner event we're doing with them is a success later this week. But we're doing an event with them on Wednesday that'll also involve the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, people from the Nebraska Public Service Commission. And then on Saturday, we're doing an event with the Kansas Attorney General in Leavenworth, Kansas. So things like that where we invite the community. And we do drop offs at libraries. So that's another reason why we work, you know, one of the things I did this summer was go to the Association of Rural and Small Libraries to learn more about how we can leverage those partnerships and work with them to create events. It's a lot of interacting with, not only consumers, but also local elected officials. So hearing from the sort of local county run water company about how scam phone calls are impacting them and their customers. And then we bring all that back, share it with Mark and the policy team and others here in the building to try to inform the things that we do moving forward. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: So Ed, just to follow up on that. So robocalls, of course, is the issue --- the one issue. But what are some of the other issues that are being raised in -- that you see as sort of an area for more education and outreach? MR. BARTHOLME: Sure. So one of the things that we're definitely planning on covering on this upcoming tour is the port-out scam information. So that's a new thing for us to get some education out there about, and I think it's also for the small group of people that it is happening to, it can be incredibly impactful. So we want to make sure that people have tips on how to protect themselves from things like that. We're going to cover other things about protecting your smartphone device, the FCC rules on slamming and cramming and what you can do if you think you've been a victim of that. We talk about the importance of the, you know, closing the digital divide and a host of other really pocketbook issues that affect people day to day. And sometimes, it's one of those things where, and I -- many of you do this, but you get in a room and you've got a plan. And suddenly, the crowd takes everything in a totally different direction, and you're talking about the things that they are focused on and that they care about. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, yes, so I'm going to go to Irene, but just to kind of go back on that, you mentioned in your earlier presentation that consumers have suffered losses as a result of this porting scam. But if the carrier actually is responsible for giving that call away to someone else, who really should be liable for that? I mean, is it -- MR. BARTHOLME: So I am not going to weigh in on liability. There are some -- (Laughter.) MR. BARTHOLME: -- the non-lawyer of the bench can assess the liability question. There's some active things going on out there around that, and you can look into some articles that have covered that. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So let me turn it over to Irene Leech. MEMBER LEECH: Ed, as you all are doing your traveling, do you have anything set up with the cooperative extension system and with any of the local extension offices? Because there should be one in every county you're visiting. MR. BARTHOLME: So we've worked with some of the coop providers, but I don't think we've worked -- and I realize there's a distinction there. I don't think we've worked with coop extension offices and that's a great flag for us as we're -- especially route planning and sort of just reaching out to get a sense of where we're going to be. And then also working with them to have events. So I thank you for that suggestion, and we'll definitely take that back. MEMBER LEECH: Yes, because they can help you with finding locations for meetings as well as connecting -- because people in the community know them. And so as you're coming in, I would think that would be really good resource to look at. And I wondered that audio of the scam, how are you letting educators who might be working with the public know that that's out there, and are there ways that you're being sure that consumers can access that, especially those who may not use the Internet? MR. BARTHOLME: So I'll ask for help on getting the word out. So they do exist. We started them in late August and the first week of September. We did two posts, one focuses on Medicare scam and what those sound like, and then Patrick actually did a blog post on some personal calls that came to his cell phone that were sort of different -- two different variants of a call back scam. So those are out there. We're adding more. We've got some SSA call audio that we're going to add to an existing SSA post that we did earlier this year. So please help us spread the word. We're working with the Office of Media Relations to do, you know, social around this and to get the word out. You know, news coverage would also be helpful and that's something that we're coordinating with them to sort of push for a little more around these. But we would welcome your support in getting the word out as well. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. And Ed, we're going to keep you in the chair for a little bit. Shirley, you have a question? MEMBER ROOKER: Ed, tell me, is there really life after Call for Action? MR. BARTHOLME: No, absolutely not. (Laughter.) MEMBER ROOKER: Anyway, it's nice to see you here and an excellent presentation. But what I wanted to ask you about is if we can play, at Call for Action, some part in helping you to get the message out through our media offices, since we do have in Kansas and where else are you going to? Wisconsin? MR. BARTHOLME: And Nebraska on this one. MEMBER ROOKER: Oh, Nebraska? MR. BARTHOLME: We did Wisconsin before. MEMBER ROOKER: Yes. MR. BARTHOLME: And I did reach out to Colin and other folks in Wisconsin -- MEMBER ROOKER: Great. MR. BARTHOLME: -- when we were going through there. But yes, I would welcome the help. MEMBER ROOKER: Absolutely. MR. BARTHOLME: And we should be coordinating with you. MEMBER ROOKER: We would be more than happy to offer any help that we can. So anyway, and thank you for an excellent presentation. MR. BARTHOLME: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Shirley. Debra? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes, I -- this is repeating the same message, but I was just going to say, Ed, that any organization that has access to a membership should probably send out that word that this is available. Because I think it would be really great information. MR. BARTHOLME: Yes, and you know, another project we did over the summer was our outreach team did sort of aggregate all of our outreach contacts into a centralized database. So we are going to be working on how do we leverage that better? How do we get things out through that network to better help promote and to better help plan activities and events? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes, so anything we can do to help. MR. BARTHOLME: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: All right. Have another question. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: This is for anyone in relation to -- in CGB in relation to your consumer complaints, inquiries and complaints database. Is there some consideration about tracking? So say, the same person is filing complaints, but it could be over several years, couple years, or whatever, to track that person and the outcome of the situation? Because it could be within a different department within the Bureau. So I'm looking to see tracking and the outcome and how that's counted. That would be very helpful for those of us who are served with complaints. MR. BARTHOLME: And we do internal tracking on things like that, obviously. So you know, if somebody submits a second complaint, they're able to tie that back to that same individual from previous complaints they've reported. But because of the sort of rules around PII and things like that, that's not something that we would -- as it pertains to an individual would be able to make public. But it is something that's done internally to ensure that we're meeting needs and covering issues as a program. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Another question? MEMBER KOCH: Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Ed, for your presentation. Consumers often look to their state legislators for help on these issues, even though that's not really within the scope of what we do. To what extent have you been able to reach out to state legislators across the country through our organizations and let them know that you're there, let them know their staffs, in particular, that these resources are there? Or if not, how could we help? MR. BARTHOLME: Sure. I think I would invite the how can we help. We have had some success with that. In Nebraska, we were able to work with a state legislator who had pushed some robocall related legislation through the Nebraska state process. And we would welcome that opportunity in other places. We also do work pretty well with the public service and public utility commissions which is our normal sort of touch point for referrals and things like that at the state level. MEMBER KOCH: And thanks, Ed. And just a follow up. Not so much legislation but educating our staff on the consumer protection resources that are out there. MR. BARTHOLME: Sure, sure. MEMBER KOCH: And we can make sure we get consumers to the right place for this information. MR. BARTHOLME: Right. And I don't want to create the impression that we're working with state legislators on legislation. My way of using that example was that we were able to identify this individual because of their heavy involvement on a robocall related bill. So that was sort of a, hey, reach out to this person, let them know we're coming to town. There's going to be an event and then they can help work with us to do consumer education. But yes, definitely to the extent that we should have a conversation about how that would make sense to do that. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, well, thank you, Eric. So since we have Ed on the seat right now, let me just check the phone lines to see if there's any questions. Anybody out there have a question for Ed at this time? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Just -- just a little bit of education for me. What exactly is the AAA Awards event? I heard that mentioned and I wasn't sure what that was. MR. BARTHOLME: So this is probably where -- yes, you want to take this one? CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Diane? CHAIR POCIASK: All right, Diane Burstein. MS. BURSTEIN: Hi, thanks. It's an annual event that's been going on for a couple of years now where various different providers of accessible equipment might, or services, might apply and get recognized by the Commission for their work in this area. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Was there anything like notable like new initiatives, or are these like equipment manufacturers and service providers? MS. BURSTEIN: Well, this year, there -- Cisco was one where they had introduced an Enterprise phone that was accessible to blind people, I believe was the advancement there. And then eye tracking technology, which was a group of people who also had submitted applications in that area. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. That's very helpful. MS. BURSTEIN: Yes, it's great stuff. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, absolutely. So we had six presentations. Were there other questions that people had of the earlier presenters? Anything else? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Anyone online have a question? Steve or Katie? MEMBER HILDEBRAND: No. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Can I say something? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I just want to thank the Bureau for giving us so much time today and for the leadership you provide for consumers. So thank you so much. Thank you all, great staff. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: All right, so we're back to a break time. So yes, so we'll be back at 10:30. But come back early in case we start early because we have a little bit of time here. So, we'll see you then. (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 10:09 a.m. and resumed at 10:31 a.m.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, well, let's get started here in just a couple seconds. Everyone take a seat. First, let me just start with a couple administrative things. If -- does anyone need cups for water? I just wanted to make sure we have some bottles coming shortly. Also, just a reminder, in addition to raising your tent card if you have a question, when you begin, please announce your name and organization. It's sometimes helpful because we are keeping a transcript just so we can follow what's happening there. Also, just another administrative item, if, for some reason, you don't have an agenda, it's on the back table if you want extra copies. There's -- you might also find some of the presentation PowerPoints back there as well. So, if you want to grab that real quick. Also, I just want to just stop as we start here just to stop for a second now. I just want to just thank Catherine Langston who's been doing a lot of the planning to make things go smoothly, the logistics, the food arrangements, and things such as that. So, Catherine, thank you very much for doing that. (APPLAUSE) CHAIR POCIASK: So, let's start off now. So, we're going to get a presentation here on the Ban on Malicious Caller ID Spoofing and Foreign Robocalls. This will be a very good presentation brought to you by Pam Arluk. She's the Chief, Competition Policy Division. So, Pam, it's over to you. MS. ARLUK: Great, hi. Can everyone hear me? Great. Okay, thank you. So, thanks, everyone. So, as everyone knows, robocalling has been just a huge issue at the Commission and for everyone. I think it's one that everyone can relate to. And, you know, American consumers, we continue to be plagued by nefarious schemes that manipulate caller identification information to deceive people about the name and phone number of the party that is calling in order to facilitate fraudulent and harmful activities. In just the first six months of 2019, the Commission received over 35,000 consumer complaints about caller ID spoofing. It's the number one complaint that the FCC gets. So, on August 5th, 2019, the Commission released the second report and order that revised the Commission's Truth in Caller Identification rules to implement the amendments to Section 227(e) of the Communications Act which was adopted by Congress last year as part of the RAY BAUM's Act. So, I mean, the main thing, the second report and order that we adopted in August, it's actually a pretty narrow order. It mainly -- it implements the amended Section 227(e) and it continues the Commission's multi-pronged approach to protecting American consumers from illegally spoofed robocalls. The main thing that the order does is it revised the caller ID spoofing rules to cover communications that originate outside the United States directed at recipients within the United States. So, those communications are now banned by the Truth in Caller ID rules. And then, the Commission expanded the scope of communications covered by the Truth in Caller ID rules beyond the telecommunications services and interconnected VoIP services to include text messaging and alternative voice services such as one-way VoIP services. And so, in doing that, the Commission revised -- one of the big things the Commission did was revised the definition of text message and, in doing so, the Commission adopted a definition that pretty much mirrors the statutory language of Section 227(e). The Commission also clarifies that the definition of text messaging includes messages sent to or from a person or entity using common short codes. Short codes are a five or six digit codes, typically used by enterprises for communicating with consumers at high volume. The Commission also incorporated the exclusions from the definition of text message from Section 227(e) which include a real-time two-way voice or video communications and a message sent over an IP-enabled messaging service to another user of the same messaging service except for an SMS or MMS message. The Commission also modified the definition of voice services which was consistent with the new statutory language. So, for the purposes of the new Truth in Caller ID rules, the Commission interpreted the term voice service to be more expansive and to include one-way VoIP services and any similar IP-based or other technology-based calling capability that furnishes voice communications to an end user using resources from the North American Numbering Plan or any successor to the North American Numbering Plan adopted by the Commission under Section 251(e)(1). So, that is pretty much what we did in August. If anyone has any questions, I am happy to answer. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, let's open it up then for questions. Anyone? (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE) CHAIR POCIASK: Anyone on the phone? (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE) CHAIR POCIASK: Well, I think that did it. MS. ARLUK: Great, awesome. Well, thank you so much. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you, Pam. (APPLAUSE) CHAIR POCIASK: All right. So, we have Karen Schroeder here? All right, so let's just take two minutes if anyone wants to just stretch or refill and we'll be right back. (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 10:39 a.m. and resumed at 10:39 a.m.) VICE CHAIR BERLYN: You mic's not on yet. Raise your hand. MEMBER ROOKER: These are wonderful words, you need to hear them. Good lord. Now, there you go, okay. I just had gotten an email the other day and it had to do with where the calls are going -- what carriers are being used. And, it turns out that this survey by the Transaction Network Services, I don't know who they are, it's just something that I had gotten and some information. Anyway, they said that we are now receiving 200 million calls a day, consumers, a day. Now, what the point I wanted to make was, of the six major carriers, their survey says that the six major carriers provide 70 percent of the service. But only 12 percent of these fraudulent calls are going through these major carriers. So, they are hitting the smaller carriers in other parts of the country where you may also have a more vulnerable population. I just thought that was very interesting. If anybody wants, I can send them a link to the article. Does that startle anybody? It startled me. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, and, you know, I'm not sure that even when a lot of the robo blocking rules take effect that much of that will change because a lot of those are still on an old POTs networks and not IP. MEMBER ROOKER: Right, right. But that's the point the article's making is how much can we do with -- because the smaller carriers are probably not going to have the resources to put in place all the sophisticated technology -- CHAIR POCIASK: Well, send the article around, Transactions Network Services is a major -- MEMBER ROOKER: Are they a major player? CHAIR POCIASK: -- network. It's a major network of like credit card transactions. MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: So, that -- I don't know what else they do but -- MEMBER ROOKER: I thought it was -- I thought the study was -- the survey was fascinating. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes, that would be helpful to see that. MEMBER ROOKER: You want to see it? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Send it around. MEMBER ROOKER: I'll send it to you, Steve. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Send it to Scott. MEMBER ROOKER: I'll send it to Scott. We send everything to Scott. Okay, I'll send you the link to it, Scott. MR. MARSHALL: Okay, great and I'll be sure everybody gets it. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, okay. So, with that, let's keep -- we'll just move ahead here. So, we're going to hear now from Karen Schroeder. We're going to hear a report on the Deployment and Implementation of Call Blocking and Caller ID Authentication. So, this is the next big issue here for our working group. MS. SCHROEDER: Hello, everyone. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Hi. (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) MR. MARSHALL: Can someone back in AV board there could help? Steve or Jeff or Greg? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, we need help with the slide deck. MR. MARSHALL: Maybe they could help with the deck. You shouldn't have to struggle with it. MS. SCHROEDER: Right, they put the spotlight on me. MR. MARSHALL: Sorry. MS. SCHROEDER: No, it's all right, I've dealt with things -- oops, something's happening. So, it's the presentation entitled Call Blocking Report if anyone back there hears me. Looks like this. CHAIR POCIASK: There are a few copies on the back table. Here we go. Now the much awaited report. MS. SCHROEDER: Good morning, sorry for the confusion. I'm an attorney in the Consumer Policy Division in CGB and I'm here to talk about a call blocking report that I think we're going to be asking you for some help with which makes sense because it was originally your idea. So, CGB has been working on the first of two planned staff reports on call blocking. In June of this year, the Commission directed us to prepare these two reports in consultation with WCB, Wireline Competition Bureau and with Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. And, the purpose of the report is to study the implementation and effectiveness of blocking measures. And, as I said, the report is based, in part, on the CAC's recommendation regarding unwanted call blocking from September of 2017. So, the report covers several topics. And, in red are the two that we think you might be able to help us with. The first of those is availability of call blocking solutions and the second is effectiveness of call blocking solutions. The report also covers the impact of FCC actions, the deployment and impact of SHAKEN/STIR, the impact on 9-1-1 and public safety, and anything else, any other information that may inform the Commission's analysis of the state of deployment of advanced methods and tools to eliminate illegal and unwanted calls. So, we expect that we'll be working with you on a formal request for those two in red. But one of the things I was hoping to talk to you about today is, I'm going to go through each of these and get you started on thinking about what you might have to offer on any of them with an emphasis on the first two. So, availability of call blocking solutions. We're wondering if the CAC has any data or other information on the availability of call blocking solutions offered to consumers, what solutions are available? Are they opt in or they opt out? Are they network level? Are they third-party fees that are charged for the solutions? How many consumers are subscribing? Either in terms of proportion or a number? So, just general information on call blocking solutions that are out there. And then, the effectiveness of those solutions. Wondering if the CAC has data or anything on the number of -- total volume of robocalls transiting our phone system, how that number might be determined? We get different estimates of that from different sources. How effective the solutions are at blocking illegal and unwanted calls? Does the solution send an intercept message for blocked calls? If so, how many does it send? What's the rate of false positives? What's the rate of false negatives? And, how many calls does the solution block? And, the other areas that you may or may not have information on, is the impact of the FCC actions that we've taken to date. Back in November of 2017, we issued the call blocking order which allows the voice service providers to block calls in certain specific instances, namely Do Not Originate calls where the originator of the call has said, I only use this number to receive calls, I never send outbound calls. Also blocking invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers that can't be making calls. We've also issued a declaratory ruling back in June in the same item that produced the request to do this report that lets voice service providers default people into call blocking solutions so that people can opt out of them rather than having to proactively opt into them. So, we're wondering, you know, how effective were these measures? What's being done in response to them? How is that going? Another topic is the deployment and impact of SHAKEN/STIR. We have an open rulemaking on this. We did an NPRM so that if -- suggesting that if voice service -- if the major voice service providers haven't implemented by the end of this year, we positioned to require it. We know industry has made progress on SHAKEN/STIR and we're curious for an update on the progress made. And then, very important impact on 9-1-1 services and public safety. We definitely want to make sure that any call blocking does not block calls to or from emergency numbers. That's a critical area of public safety. So, we wanted to know if there's any information on whether calls are being blocked in error and then how that blocking is reported and resolved, hopefully, quickly. And, hopefully, not at all, if it's at all quickly. And then, what's happening with public safety entities? Are they experiencing unwanted or illegal calls coming in that are interfering with their mission? And then, finally, if you have anything that I haven't already asked for that may inform our analysis on this topic, we would, of course, welcome it. So, we're going to be issuing a public notice to seek input on this. We're also probably going to be asking you for your help, as I've mentioned. We recognize that some of what we're asking for is competitively sensitive. So, if anyone wants to aggregate information so it's not attributed to specific organizations, we welcome aggregated information, if that's the way we can get it. And, we're looking for both current data and projected data through July 2020, if it's available. Does anyone have any questions? CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So, let's open it up. Do we have any questions in the room? Shirley? MEMBER ROOKER: I'm supposed to be on that group that -- and, truthfully, I'm sitting here listening to you and I'm thinking, I don't have a clue where to start. Does anybody else who's going to be on this call -- can't even say it -- feel the say I do as to how do we even start on something like this? I mean, to me, the questions that you asked are the essential ones. But where does the data come from? Where does the information come from? How do you accumulate it? Those things come to my mind when I'm sitting here listening and thinking, these are the things that we need to know but how in the world do we get it? CHAIR POCIASK: Karen, do you have thoughts on that? MS. SCHROEDER: I have a few thoughts. I confess, I had the same thought when I was tasked with this. MEMBER ROOKER: Thank you. MS. SCHROEDER: We need to -- I recognize that some of this data is difficult. For example, the volume of robocalls across the network. We just did a quick internal analysis and you get numbers on that that are orders of magnitude different, depending on what exactly you call a robocall, what network you're looking at, that you're going to get data from different perspectives that's going to differ. So, I think what we're probably going to have to do with this report is gather the data that we can find, recognizing that we're probably not going to have a definitive answer for every question. What we can do is we can say that, you know, this industry group estimates this. And, this industry group estimates this. And, I'm hoping that the public notice will give us a good range of organizations responding with those different perspectives. And then, we can give ranges and we can give those different perspectives in the report. CHAIR POCIASK: Shirley? MEMBER ROOKER: Did you hear, by any change, were you in the room when I was mentioning earlier about a study, a survey by the Transaction Network Services that they found that consumers are receiving about 200 million robocalls a day? And, that of those, only 12 percent of them come from the top six carriers, through the top six carriers. They were saying that the majority of them come through the smaller carriers. Now, I'm not that familiar with what that actually means, but to my mind, it says it's going to be awfully hard to get real information. I sent Scott a link to the article that I'm referring to, the survey. And, Steve says that these -- this company is a known player so that we can put some validity, Steve, would you say that, to what they're saying? CHAIR POCIASK: Well, yes, they're a main player in -- MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: -- credit card transactions -- MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: -- for like point of sales and things like that. So, they have their own -- they have a network. But I don't know the -- MEMBER ROOKER: Well, we don't know -- CHAIR POCIASK: -- methodology of the survey but -- MEMBER ROOKER: Right, we don't know exactly how they came to all these figures. But it was certainly startling to me when I saw it. And, that's why I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention today. I've shared this with Scott and I'm sure he can share it with you, Karen, just take a look at it and see what you think about it. MS. SCHROEDER: I'm familiar with TNS and the report. I'm trying to remember how they defined robocall because that's one of the -- not all robocalls are bad. MEMBER ROOKER: Right. MS. SCHROEDER: If you get account balance reminders, appointment reminders, things like that. MEMBER ROOKER: Let me see if they say that. MS. SCHROEDER: Things like that. Those -- some organizations consider those to be robocalls, others do not include wanted calls in their data. So, that's part of that discrepancy in the numbers I was telling you about. MEMBER ROOKER: They say unwanted robocalls. MS. SCHROEDER: Okay. MEMBER ROOKER: Now, I don't know how they define that. MS. SCHROEDER: That's a difficult one to define. MEMBER ROOKER: Well, actually they talk about scam and fraud robocalls. MS. SCHROEDER: So, scam and fraud can be more narrow but, again, that is one of the issues that we've been having with the data is exactly -- MEMBER ROOKER: I understand. MS. SCHROEDER: -- what are you measuring? MEMBER ROOKER: Sure. MS. SCHROEDER: Which is -- I can't speak for the Commission's final determination on this report. But in the past, what we've done is give a range, give the different data points that we get, what we know about what they're measuring. And, that sheds some light on the situation. So, I think there's value in pursuing this even if we don't get the answer. MEMBER ROOKER: Oh, agreed. MS. SCHROEDER: But I understand your concern with how do you provide that information? MEMBER ROOKER: Oh, I'm quite interested in how we approach this. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Did we have other questions? (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So, and also, was there anyone on the phone who has a question? (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE) CHAIR POCIASK: So, with that, Karen, thank you so much. MS. SCHROEDER: Thank you all. I really appreciate it. (APPLAUSE) MEMBER ROOKER: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: So, is Kirk here? Okay. (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, so, we're -- yes, we're running early again. All right, so --- (OFF MICROPHONE COMMENTS) CHAIR POCIASK: So, you know, while we do that, yes, what I was saying is they're one of the major players that do the transactions for credit card verification. And, so, I'd be interested and look at the methodology to see the extent that maybe the fraudulent calls are actually going, you know, trying to make, you know, trying to make, you know, credit sales and things such as that. MEMBER ROOKER: I don't know. I haven't read it that much, I just saw it the other day. And, I thought, gosh, a point we're going to be talking about here. It'd be very interesting to know what they're saying, so I just read it. And so, anyway, Scott can share it with everyone and whether or not you want to read it, that's up to you. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, Debbie? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: So, I assume the questions -- MEMBER ROOKER: You're not on. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I'm not on? I think I'm on now. I assume the questions that the working group will need to address will be provided to them, you know, some of the issues that the questions that she brought up will be provided in a very specific way for the working group so that they'll have that direction. CHAIR POCIASK: Scott? MR. MARSHALL: Yes, am I on here? Am I on? I'll check, oh okay. Here we go. Yes, we will -- the report topic is not currently a working group, but will likely become one. And, we are working on providing some specifics on what the CAC could provide, realizing that it may be a question of leveraging information that our members or that some members around the table here have that we certainly, we being CAC, don't have any independent research capability. So, this afternoon at 1:30, there's going to be a group down the hall here in 402, 445, anybody that wants to talk about this, kick it around a little bit, you're welcome to do that. The Caller ID Authentication Group has been already established. Many of you are on it. And, that's a sort of a different topic than what we're talking about in the report. Because what the Caller ID group has been charged to do, and there's specific language in your packet of what that charge is and the questions being asked is to look at what kind of consumer education challenges or strategies surround educating consumers about the implementation of SHAKEN/STIR. When they see the SHAKEN/STIR symbol on the telephone screen, what does it mean exactly? And, well, I'll stop there. I have a story about an Uber driver who found out that I work for FCC and went on to say, and this was about a major carrier that was sending out messages that meant nothing to him about whether -- one said likely scam. Another one said block. But those terms didn't mean anything. So, one of the things that the Caller ID Authentication Group, that's Michael and Thaddeus, under their leadership, will be doing is trying to figure out how to message all that. Does that help? MEMBER ROOKER: Yes. MR. MARSHALL: Okay, cool. MEMBER ROOKER: I know nothing, so anything helps. MR. MARSHALL: Oh, stop it. Now, stop it. CHAIR POCIASK: So, at 1:45, is the -- MR. MARSHALL: 1:30. CHAIR POCIASK: Oh, 1:30 is -- MR. MARSHALL: 1:30 these -- CHAIR POCIASK: The Caller ID Authentication will also -- MR. MARSHALL: Well, the Caller ID group, whether that makes it easier to say, right? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes. MR. MARSHALL: That will meet here in this room. MEMBER ROOKER: I wasn't aware of that. MR. MARSHALL: And, then, the discussion on the reporting requirements that Karen talked about -- CHAIR POCIASK: Is that a break out? MR. MARSHALL: -- that's a break out session down the hall here. You go down the corridor as if you're going outside and then 402, 445. CHAIR POCIASK: What is it? What room? MR. MARSHALL: Room 402, 445. MEMBER ROOKER: Which one is going down the hall and which one is staying here? MR. MARSHALL: The Caller ID Authentication is here. MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: And, the one that you know you're on is here. MEMBER ROOKER: That's it? MR. MARSHALL: Yes. CHAIR POCIASK: And, Karen's data requirements then is the break out. MR. MARSHALL: Discussion, that'll be the break out and we'll show you where that room is. It's very nearby. MEMBER ROOKER: But the thing that Karen just talked about? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. MR. MARSHALL: Yes. MEMBER ROOKER: But she just talked about blocking and ID. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: It's a discussion. MR. MARSHALL: It's a discussion. It's not a working group yet. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: It's not a working group. MR. MARSHALL: It'll be to talk about what Karen -- CHAIR POCIASK: So, we may create a new working group as a result of this? MR. MARSHALL: Right. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay? Yes, so the -- MR. MARSHALL: There's too many authentications in the room. CHAIR POCIASK: Right, right. So -- MR. MARSHALL: I understand it. I understand perfectly. CHAIR POCIASK: So, the current working group -- the current ID working group that will be here, they'll be kicking off because they're under a tight deadline to move up -- MR. MARSHALL: Yes, they are. CHAIR POCIASK: -- and to report potentially a recommendation by December. MR. MARSHALL: And, they've got a messaging task, really, to figure out how to message what the little SHAKEN/STIR emblem, whatever they use -- MEMBER ROOKER: Let me just -- MR. MARSHALL: -- means. MEMBER ROOKER: I hate to be redundant -- MR. MARSHALL: Sure. MEMBER ROOKER: -- but are you telling me that the call blocking and caller ID authentication, which is the other working group, as I understand it or is going to be, I think that's where I asked to be. MR. MARSHALL: That's where you are. MEMBER ROOKER: That's going to meet today? MR. MARSHALL: Here. MEMBER ROOKER: At 1:30? MR. MARSHALL: Yes, ma'am. MEMBER ROOKER: And, how long are we scheduled to meet? MR. MARSHALL: From about 1:30 to about 3:00. It's totally flexible in terms of how much discussion you want to do. Part of the activity will be to develop a work plan. MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: In terms of how much time you want to spend on this topic and how many meetings. MEMBER ROOKER: And, who's leading that? MR. MARSHALL: The first speaker will be Ed Bartholme who spoke earlier. MEMBER ROOKER: Well, he doesn't know anything. MR. MARSHALL: And, he's a -- (LAUGHTER) MEMBER ROOKER: You can tell him I said that. MR. MARSHALL: And, who's actually leading that, it's Thaddeus and Michael. MEMBER ROOKER: So, he'll be here at 1:30? MR. MARSHALL: Ed will be back at -- I promise you, yes. MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: Right here. MEMBER ROOKER: All right. MR. MARSHALL: Yes, right here in this very room. MEMBER ROOKER: So, I just have to make a change in my schedule of travel today. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: And then, Karen's issue will be in the break out. MR. MARSHALL: Yes. MEMBER ROOKER: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: Does that help? MEMBER ROOKER: No, but I'm still -- yes, thank you. You remember now, you have to keep it for the slowest people in the group. MR. MARSHALL: Oh, stop it. MEMBER ROOKER: So -- CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, Matthew? MR. MARSHALL: Hey, Matt. Somebody just left the line, too, is what it sounds like it. CHAIR POCIASK: There you go. MEMBER GERST: At the risk of asking an ignorant question, I don't recall that this afternoon's meetings were noticed. So, some of us actually have conflicting arrangements. Was this sent out, these meeting notices? MR. MARSHALL: Yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes. MEMBER GERST: They were? MR. MARSHALL: Yes. MEMBER GERST: Does anybody -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: As part of the agenda. MR. MARSHALL: Right. As part of the agenda. The -- in my cover, you know, email also, talked about the break out groups. I'm sorry if we didn't make the message clear enough. But they, you know, certainly if you can't meet -- make this meeting, there are others that will be forthcoming, especially on the Caller ID Authentication group. They're just getting started today. MEMBER GERST: Oh, I see. There was a sentence that said -- MR. MARSHALL: And, I forgot, there was one member that couldn't attend is calling in to the Caller ID Authentication group. CHAIR POCIASK: All right. So -- MR. MARSHALL: And, there's also a mailing list for that Caller ID Authentication group, the Caller ID group just like we have for the phone CAC. And that will be -- that's operational, too. And, we have sheet this afternoon about how to post messages there as well. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, so, if there's nothing else, then, let's move ahead on the agenda. We're going to hear an update on Digital Opportunity Data Collection and the presenters will be Kirk Burgee, Chief of Staff and Garnet Hanly, she's the Chief at Competition Infrastructure Policy Division. So, with that, let me turn it over to those folks for the presentation. So, we need to restart? Do you have a PowerPoint? MR. BURGEE: No, we just -- CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, good. MR. BURGEE: Good morning, everyone. So, we're going to talk about the item that the Commission adopted on August 1st which did a number of things. I'll be talking about the fix side of that. So, on August 1, as some of you, I'm sure, know, the Commission released a report and order and a further notice of proposed rulemaking concerning broadband data collection. So, one of the most significant aspects of that was the creation of the Digital Opportunity Data Collection which is a new broadband deployment data collection separate from the Form 477 data collection which will continue to go on at least for the near future. The Digital Opportunity Data Collection will collect broadband deployment data from all providers of fixed broadband deployment services in the form of geospatial files which will show on a geographic basis the specific areas where they are providing coverage. This is a change from what the Form 477 does which collects by census blocks which has its limitations as I'm sure many of you know. So, we see this as a significant improvement in terms of the granularity and the precision and the usefulness of the broadband deployment data that we'll be collecting. Another aspect of the DODC is that we will establish a platform for the submission of data from stakeholders, including consumers and governmental entities who can dispute the deployment data that is submitted by providers. This is also a new feature that we think will greatly improve the quality of the data that we have available to make determinations about policy and we'll be available to the public as well. The Universal Service Administrative Company will be tasked with administering this platform and much of the day to day work associated with the collection of the data and the reporting will be subject to the close supervision of the FCC in that process. So, the initial filing in the DODC will be six months after the FCC releases a public notice that the platform is available. Providers, filers will have an opportunity to file any time after that public notice. But not later than six months after the public notice. And then, after that, providers will be obligated to report revisions that would affect the accuracy of their data on file within six months of any change that results in that. And then, there will be an annual certification required every June 30 by every provider that will certify to the accuracy of their data as of the prior December 31st. So, in the second further notice which was also adopted on August 1st, the FCC asked a lot of questions about how to implement this. One of the key features is whether or not we should establish technical parameters for the submission of the deployment data. That is, should we specify how providers -- what they report based on features of their network or other technical specifications. We also ask a number of questions about how to establish the consumer -- the crowd sourced platform that I referenced earlier. There's a number of issues surrounding how -- what would be the appropriate way to affect that. And, the FCC is also looking at the next phase of deployment data which would be the establishment of a location fabric database which would establish a database that consists of every broadband serviceable location in the country. So, we would -- this would be a layer or ultimately be a layer of the broadband deployment data reporting that would establish where the locations actually are with geographic precision so that this would be ultimately added to the coverage reporting to establish a full picture of broadband deployment on the fixed side. We also ask in the second further notice whether -- what we should, at some point, sunset the Form 477 deployment data reporting once the DODC platform is up and running and established as a useful tool. So, comments on the issues raised in the second further notice will be due on September 23rd and reply comments will be due on October 7th. MS. HANLY: Good morning, everyone. A couple familiar faces. So, I'm going to talk a bit about the mobile side in the August 1 item. So, in the report and order section, the Commission decided to take steps to improve some of the existing 477 collections. And, also, to eliminate some of the data required that the Commission believed was unnecessary. So, first, the Commission had decided that it was necessary to make clear that the wireless speed data was no longer going to be deemed confidential. So, it made clear that the Commission would publish provider-specific coverage maps on speed for -- and it would be based on the technology used. So, provider-specific maps with speed and the coverage for LTE, GSM, CDMA, and 5G. So, the -- in addition to that in the report and order, the Commission recognized that we were collecting some data on technology codes that it deemed was no longer necessary like EVDO, Rev-A, you know, various versions of 3G and so forth. And so, we streamlined that process. We made clear that the service providers would submit 5G NR which is the new technology for 5G. And, R stands for new radio, LTE, CDMA-based, GSM-based technologies. So, there would be provider-specific maps with speed for those different technologies. In addition to that, in the report and order, we -- the Commission took steps to provide more granular data on subscriber data. Previously, it was done at the state level. And, the Commission decided it was necessary to have more granular data. And so, we're now going to require that the service provider submit wireless data at the census tract level. And, this will be based on the subscribers place of primary use for post-paid subscribers and that pre-paid subscribers will submit data based on the telephone number. So, in addition, we -- the Commission decided that it was going to eliminate the collection of mobile retail availability data. Previously, service providers would submit a list of census tracts where they were offering service. This was a requirement that had been in place for many years. And, really, it was somewhat duplicative of requiring the deployment data. So, the Commission decided it would eliminate this requirement and look more towards improving the deployment data. So, in the further notice, the Commission did ask a lot of questions about improving the collection of mobile coverage data. The Commission decided it wasn't time yet to transition the mobile coverage data to the DODC or Digital Opportunity Data Collection Fund, as Kirk had described. There were still a lot of things that the Commission needed to understand. You know, the Commission did Mobility Fund Phase II, Universal Service Collection, and it's still learning from that. And, we recognize we probably needed to refresh the record on these issues. Given the complexities with collecting mobile coverage data, the Commission asked a lot of questions. In particular, it asked comments on standardizing the parameters for coverage maps. In the Mobility Fund Phase II Program, it did standardized parameters. The Commission requested detailed information about what the industry and outside parties have learned from that process is to inform the Commission for future data collection and, you know, that the Commission, on an ongoing basis should require. So, it asked a lot of questions about that. It asked about the format, what kind of GIS polygon data it should request. It also asked for questions about whether the Commission could -- should consider collecting infrastructure information, whether that would help provide more granularity for the Commission in analyzing wireless coverage data. And also, as Kirk had explained, the Commission asked a lot of questions about what we refer to as crowd sourcing data, whether it's, you know, consumers doing speed test apps and submitting that data or whether it's drive tests on the ground data. On drive tests, we ask questions about drone data and whether that would help enlighten the Commission in better -- providing more verification and accuracy of wireless coverage data. The Commission had noted that after the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Commission did some drive testing and drone testing data, recognizing that drone testing data is new in the industry and, you know, it's especially helpful in areas where you can't take a car. And, you know, there are some unique factors that the Commission needs to consider because of drone testing. But wanted to seek comment on those type of issues as, you know, a tool that the Commission could use to further verify accuracy of wireless coverage data. In addition to the requests for information about improving wireless coverage data, the Commission also asked further questions about getting more granular subscriber data from service providers. More specifically, the Commission asked about breaking out some of the subscriber data by, you know, who the service provider serves, enterprise, wholesale, government, pre-paid, post-paid. So, the Commission sought comment on getting, you know, whether it should consider requiring some of that more detailed subscriber data. And then, finally, the Commission also sought comment about sun setting Form 477 data and transitioning it over to the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, similar to what Kirk had talked about that USAC is start -- well, it's putting up this new system to collect the fixed data. So, those are some of the issues that the Commission both addressed in the report and order and teed up for further notice on wireless coverage data and subscriber data. The comment cycle is the same for the mobile side as it is for fixed. So, I guess we're going to receive comments in the next week and a half. And, I think from the wireless bureau's perspective, we certainly encourage as much, you know, outside input on these issues. We recognize, you know, wireless coverage data is extremely difficult because of the uniqueness of wireless, the fact that, you know, just even coverage and speed data can differ depending on who's on the network, the topography, when the leaves are the tree, it could impact, you know, the speed and coverage and so forth and signal strength. So, we recognize there's a lot of complexity with the probabilistic nature of wireless and the networks. So, we encourage a lot of input on that as the Commission moves forward in, you know, setting new parameters around collection of wireless coverage data. So, that's all I have. And, open for any questions that anyone has. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, thank you. Well, wait, I have some questions. MS. HANLY: Oh, sure. CHAIR POCIASK: So, you mentioned the speed accuracy issue like as it relates to -- MS. HANLY: For wireless? CHAIR POCIASK: For wireless. MS. HANLY: Sure. CHAIR POCIASK: And, I guess it could be for other networks as it relates to -- that are subject to congestion. How do you envision something like that being reported? I mean, I can tell you what my maximum might be, but if everyone's hitting carriage return at the same time, you know, the network, you know, slows down. And so, how do you -- what were you thinking how would something like that work? MS. HANLY: Well, currently, right now, the requirement for the submission of speed data is based on minimum average or expected speed. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MS. HANLY: So, if parties have suggestions of different ways that we should better seek information from service providers on how to calculate, you know, at the end of the day, what consumers could reasonably expect in terms of speed. But to keep in mind, again, it's -- nothing's going to be perfect when it comes to the wireless because of the, you know, the uniqueness of wireless and all the different factors that could impact speed at certain times of the day. So, right now, again, we go back to minimum advertised or expected speed, which is what is currently required. And, if parties have suggestions of better ways to get at what consumers could reasonably expect and how we should collect that information, then we encourage folks to submit that to us. CHAIR POCIASK: And, just a quick follow up, too, and like in regard to small providers, WISPs and others -- MS. HANLY: Yes. CHAIR POCIASK: -- are there exemptions that say a certain size, is there -- are they exempt from reporting requirements or does everyone -- MS. HANLY: Everyone has to submit. CHAIR POCIASK: Everyone will, okay. MS. HANLY: That's under current requirements. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. All right. So, we have a question over here. Irene? MEMBER LEECH: As a consumer who has to get broadband wirelessly, and that's the only option, census tract is an awfully big measurement level. MS. HANLY: Are you talking about for calculating subscriber data? Because that's for subscriber data. Because the ultimate goal is, if you have a coverage map that the map has the capability to zoom in within addresses and so forth. But when I talked about census tract, that was on subscriber data. CHAIR POCIASK: So, it'll be block level potentially? MS. HANLY: Well, I mean so, again, I think the ultimate goal is to have maps that could zoom in within like if you have an address. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MS. HANLY: I mean, it's -- I mean, currently, service providers have on their websites maps that you typically can put in your address and zoom in. And, I recognize your smiling and saying, but you're not sure how accurate those are. MEMBER LEECH: Correct. MS. HANLY: But then, that goes towards -- MEMBER LEECH: Based on my experience. MS. HANLY: I recognize. And, the FCC doesn't necessarily know the methodologies that the service providers are implementing to create those coverage maps. But the FCC has sought comment on setting standardized parameters of the methodologies that service providers will implement to submit the shape files or polygon -- GIS polygons that they will submit to us. And, that might not necessarily represent the same methodologies they use to create the coverage maps on their websites. So, we will decide the standardized parameters and that's what we have sought comment on. CHAIR POCIASK: But it'll provide in that manner, it'll provide a common format across different providers so we can, you know, there's basically, we're talking one definition one language? MS. HANLY: That's correct. We're talking standardized methodologies. Because, currently, under the 477 requirements -- CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MS. HANLY: -- the service provider has the discretion to decide the methodology of how they submit the shape files to us. And, we ask for a brief description of how they do it, but they have the discretion right now. And, we have sought comment on standardizing those methodologies. Because we recognize that is a way we can improve the accuracy of the wireless maps. CHAIR POCIASK: All right, thank you. So, we have another question from Vonda. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Okay. I'd like, if you could, please, describe to me more about the DODC, the Digital Opportunity Data Collection. You said geospacial and something else. I'm very interested in a little bit more about that, please? MR. BURGEE: Okay. So, what the providers will be submitting to the FCC are essentially maps of coverage. So, it's a very precise and specific method of conveying coverage. And, our intention is to make this -- beg your pardon? MEMBER ROOKER: I said that sounds like it would be much better data. MR. BURGEE: We think it will be. We think it's going to be a big improvement in the sense that you'll be able to look at the display of the data and it will show you where coverage is and isn't in a very specific way that isn't available now. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Using satellites? Or, I'm aware about shape files and census tract. MR. BURGEE: It would shape files, that's another way to say it. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: But using satellite imagery or -- MR. BURGEE: No, it's the providers will determine the shape of their coverage based on the characteristics of their networks. They may use satellites in that process, satellite information, but they will be based on the information on the ground. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Okay. I know that there can be bleed over because sometimes if someone's on the border, you as a service provider may provide coverage to those people over your border, network border. So, but this, you all feel this will be more accurate? MR. BURGEE: Absolutely. MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Okay. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Irene, did you want to get one in here? MEMBER LEECH: There are two more things I wanted to ask about. With the -- we have what's known as fixed wireless. And, very often, our speeds and so forth vary. But it's not at all unusual for say, 10:30 in the morning in a very rural area or 10:00 to 11:00 at night, to be low times which makes no sense to us because we don't think those are times in the area that there would be lots of usage. But just be aware that there are these drops and it can go for 30 minutes to an hour. I don't know what's going on, but I know we can't -- are having trouble with that. The other thing, as you're talking about the maps, and with the wireless, I used to be able to use my cell phone consistently on a 13-mile drive that now drops calls five or six times in between there. And, I think that whole area is shown as served and yet, it's not, you know, something we can count on. MS. HANLY: Sure. In regards to the, you know, the -- MEMBER LEECH: Time of day? MS. HANLY: -- the time of day issue and so forth, I mean, so, we have -- we recognize that having, you know, outside sources come in and tell us where they think the coverage isn't accurate and so forth. So, we have sought comment on utilizing crowd sourcing data. And, again, I say crowd sourcing data, maybe it's more like a term of art within the industry. But it's basically getting input from whether it's local governments or state governments submitting data saying, you know, this company's coverage data is inaccurate. It says on their map on their website that they're serving, but that's not consistent with what the constituents are saying. And, so, we are seeking comment on having a process so that outside parties have an opportunity to submit data to us indicating that these coverage areas are inaccurate. So, we recognize the things that you're raising and we're seeking comment on how to create a resource for third-parties to come in and let us know where the coverage is inaccurate. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Let me see, Johnny? MEMBER KAMPIS: I was just kind of curious what the map would look like. Would it be a single map showing both wired and wireless? Like if I punch in my address, is it going to show me every provider that provides service alphabetically by speed or what's the map or maps going to look like? MR. BURGEE: So, right now, the DODC will just be the fixed side of the equation which will include fixed wireless but it will be fixed technologies. We have -- there's a lot to be decided about the map. We want to try to make as useful as possible to as many stakeholders as we can. I think the things you described, it's pretty reasonable to think we would put those features into it. But that's something we're still looking at and working on right now. CHAIR POCIASK: All right, Johnny, does that help? Is there anyone online that have any questions? Anyone on the phone? (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, well, thank you very much. That was very informative. Let me just ask you before you leave, if you want to just wrap through what the progression, the time deadlines are for, you know, what's happening in terms of the notice. It might be helpful just to get a quick update on that before you leave. MR. BURGEE: Sure. So, as I mentioned, the comment deadline is coming up. It's September 23rd. And, then, after that, reply comments will be due on October 7. There are no fixed time frames after that that I'm aware of. We'll have to go through a Paperwork Reduction Act process that will last about six months I think. MS. HANLY: Yes. MR. BURGEE: And, we'll be working to create these platforms and we're very interested in doing it quickly, but there's quite a bit to it. It's a very complicated process, as you can probably imagine. So, I'm afraid it's not as a most satisfying answer, but we are trying to get it done as quickly as we can. CHAIR POCIASK: Thank you very much. Thank you both. Okay, is Lori here? Excellent. So, now we're going to get an update on pending legislation of interest to consumers. So, our presenter today is Lori Maarbjerg. She's with the Office of Legislative Affairs. Lori? MS. MAARBJERG: Hi. CHAIR POCIASK: I'll turn it over to you. I glanced ahead on this and this is a pretty interesting slideshow. So, thank you for being here. MS. MAARBJERG: Good morning. How's everybody? I'm great for a Monday morning. The sun is shining, it's still 90 degrees in Washington. I'm from Legislative Affairs, as they said. I deal with consumer and governmental affairs bureaus, media bureau, and international bureau issues. So, my main focus is keeping track of what Congress is doing in helping congressional offices answer questions from their constituents when they have issues with the Commission. And so, I'm here to talk to you about the consumer related bills. I'll go in great more specifics about the robocall bills, the Senate bill and the House bill. And, I also have in my slides information on all the privacy bills that are making their way around the Senate. I know you all are probably interested in those. While they don't have as much to do with the FCC, there's a brief description of each of them and I can give you some general background on where they're at and what Congress is thinking of doing in those areas. But, first, we can talk about the TRACED Act. So, this is the bill that Senator Thune introduced. It has passed the Senate pretty overwhelmingly, 97 to 1. It is specific in that it requires the FCC to implement SHAKEN/STIR, call authentication, and that has to be done within 18 months. We have to report to Congress on the implementation within one year of enactment and then we have to give Congress an assessment every three years. It would require the creation of an interagency working group, so it would require the FCC to work with other government officials to come up with a way to that, again, just to talk as an entire government of how to deal with the robocall problems. It also increases the forfeitures for intentional violations. So, it would take the base forfeiture currently in the statute and, for intentional robocall violations would require an additional $10,000 forfeiture on top of that. The bill also increases the statute of limitations to three years for intentional robocall violations from the current one year statute of limitations. That would give the FCC more time to investigate and go after intentional robocallers. It requires the FCC to start a rulemaking on spoofing protection within one year of enactment. And, requires the FCC to start a rulemaking on access to a number of resources within a 180 days of enactment. And then, finally, there's an annual report on TCPA enforcement. So, the Senate bill, like I said, moved pretty quickly through the Senate and is currently awaiting -- we'll get to that, but the staffs are talking with each other. Because they have to negotiate with the House side now. So, the House has their own version of the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act. Again, it passed on suspension on the House back in July overwhelmingly, 429 to 3. So, it's a bipartisan effort, moved pretty quickly, again, once they figured out what they wanted to do. It is a bit different than the Senate bill. As you can see, there's a few more bullets on this slide. They make us do a few more things, more reporting it seems. But the -- one of the major differences between the two bills is that the House bill doesn't dictate what type of call authentication technology the Commission is required to implement. And so, they kept it more technology neutral. They wanted to give the FCC the ability to decide what would be best. We would have to enact within one year. And then, require the providers to implement to consumers within six months after we establish our rules. So, it's along the same sort of time frame they believe as the Senate bill, just in a different way of getting there. It requires the same interagency working group creation. So, it's -- the language is virtually identical, so that shouldn't be an issue going forward. It also increases the forfeitures for intentional violations, similarly to the Senate bill. On statute of limitations, there's a few differences here. The House bill gives a three-year statute of limitation for general robocall violations, and it gives a four-year statute of limitation for intentional violations. And then, it also provides at a four-year statute of limitations for caller ID spoofing violations, which is something that would be helpful to the Enforcement Bureau here. It requires annual reports on enforcement, annual robocall report on the status of private led efforts on trace back. Requires the FCC to establish a process to streamline voluntary information sharing. And, requires us to take final action within one year of enactment on free robocall blocking services. So, that's, again, a big difference between the House bill and the Senate bill. And, requires the FCC to start a proceeding on one-ring scams within a 120 days of enactment. And, we have to report to Congress within one year. So, those -- that's just -- those are the major sort of things. There might be a few other minor things here and there between the two bills. But, right now, the staffs are talking with one another, the Senate and House staff. So, they're trying to figure out how to move forward. It was reported I think at the end of last week that they believe those talks are going well. Again, like I said, the biggest difference between these two bills is the requirement to, on the one hand on the Senate bill to implement SHAKEN/STIR versus having a more general requirement for the FCC to implement call authentication technology. And so, it'll be interesting to see what -- which way they end up going, if they're going to get to a final agreement. Statute of limitations, while it shouldn't be an issue to resolve those given that the Senate didn't have the same exact language, they would have to work through those as well. So, we're kind of in a wait and see mode to see where the staff come out and then, ultimately, what type of language is going to result that they might be able to act on. There's great incentive for them to do it. They want to do it. So, we fully anticipate that they're going to continue to work towards that goal. But there's not any clear indication of when that actually might happen. All right. I know y'all wanted to talk about Senate privacy bills or just the privacy bills in general. So, I've taken a few pages in my -- there's 12 Senate privacy bills. And so, this, again, it's a big issue that everybody is interested in. While we here in legislative affairs, we're monitoring this, virtually all of these bills are pointed towards the FTC. There's not an FCC role here. So, we are just kind of in a monitoring situation where we keep track of them. The reason why a lot of bills have been introduced is because there isn't one framework that they've settled on yet. Now, Senator Wicker, the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is very interested in getting a national privacy frame work bill completed. He has said in the past that he wanted to have a bill done and out for public consumption by Labor Day. But, again, at the end of last week, he's reported as saying that, well, they're probably not going to make that deadline. So, yet to be seen what is going to happen with that. We have, you know, again, reporting indicates that they had a bipartisan working group of several Senators that had been earlier this year. They've held hearings and then, earlier this year before August recess, the talks had then just resulted between Senator Wicker and Senator Cantwell. And so, they are trying to focus on getting a bill done. I understand that Senator Cantwell wants to have a private right of action included in any bill. So, again, that might be one area where it would take a little bit of negotiating between the two sides. Also, recently reported that Senator Blumenthal and Senator Moran are working on their own bill. So, they were part of the bigger working group earlier in the year and they are still working towards having something as well. Again, like I said, I won't run through all of the specifics of all these bills because you have copies of it. But a lot of it just is focusing on notification to consumers, you know, a lot of the different bills, notification to consumers is the biggest issue, getting their consent as well. Some of the bills talk about having the consumers right to get their data back and delete their data. A lot of them talk about having options or preferences that consumers can establish for their privacy and their data online. Like I said before, most -- virtually all of them, except for one, are going to be implemented by the FTC. There is one that's towards the back here, the DASHBOARD Act. That one's the only one that's been referred to a different committee. It's been referred to the Senate Banking Committee because there's SEC rules involved as well. Because it's -- they're tying it back to how the data's being collected and how it's being used for profit. And so, that's why it's been referred to a different committee on the Senate side. So, there's lots of activity on the Senate side. Many bills. We'll see how many of these different aspects -- I think everybody's introducing their own bill to kind of lay their marker down and to see if they can make it into a larger framework bill that's being worked on. On the House side, not quite as much action. So, we've got two bills, two major bills that are introduced. One of them is a companion bill to one of the Senate bills, that's the -- I can never say it -- the Clarke bill, we'll just say H.R. 2231. So, that deals with the algorithms and that's a companion bill to Senator Wyden's bill in the Senate. And then, the only other like major privacy bill has been introduced by Representative Delbene. The, again, talks about opt in consent for the collection, storing, processing, selling, or sharing of sensitive data. Representative Delbene is not on the Energy and Commerce Committee where it's been referred to. So, that might have an impact on its -- on whether or not there will be hearings. But I think that's it. It's pretty much what I have to say. Anybody have any questions? CHAIR POCIASK: Questions, anyone? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Online, on the phone, any questions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: So, the prospects, I mean, there's a lot of things out there but, I mean, it doesn't look like much will happen this year. MS. MAARBJERG: They want -- well, they want to do a bill. So, but again, the time line, given that Senator Wicker said that his time line has kind of shifted, so he's not going to make his original goal of Labor Day. Unclear as to when they'll -- they might have something done. But there's a lot of Senators who are very interested and so they'll keep on pushing. But not clear. CHAIR POCIASK: Great, thank you for the update. Anyone else? Any questions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Lori, thank you so much. MS. MAARBJERG: Thanks. (Applause.) MR. MARSHALL: Thank you very much. CHAIR POCIASK: All right, so let's turn our attention to the next item on the agenda. So, what we'll hear now is an update on the Electronic Comment Filing System, ECFS and its redesign. The presenter will be Marlene Dortch. Is it Sheryl or Marlene? MS. DORTCH: It's Marlene. CHAIR POCIASK: Marlene? Okay. Marlene Dortch, how about that? It seems like I write to you so many times but -- MS. DORTCH: I know, I'm so popular. CHAIR POCIASK: So, all right. (Off-microphone comments.) CHAIR POCIASK: So, she's on the redevelopment team. So, all right, well, thank you Marlene. I'm glad you could come. MS. DORTCH: So, thank you. I feel so special, I'm excited to be here, too. So, I'm here to talk to you today about what's new with the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System. And, I also have here with me today Sheryl Segal who is the Associate Secretary for Information Resources. So, for those who -- I'm not sure who is or is not familiar with the Electronic Comment Filing System, or ECFS, as we call it here at the FCC. But it's actually just what it says, the Comment Filing System. And that allows people to submit comments electronically to the FCC. And it's also used internally as well by the bureaus and offices here at the Commission to access filings before the Commission. So, previously, we've upgraded the system. But this time, we are actually going to create a newly developed system. So, it will be tailored to current concerns and issues. And so, rather than just upgrading something that's old, we're going to redevelop a brand -- to develop a brand new system. And, we're really excited about that opportunity because that really is what it is, a great opportunity to use technology to develop a new system. So, what you can do with ECFS, for searching databases, for filings within proceedings, you know, we're going to improve with the current demands. And so, we think that this will be a significant upgrade from where we are currently. So, even though we are fixing some of the issues that occur, right now, our focus is on developing a brand new system. So, where are we? So, for the last year or so, the Office of the Secretary, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Information Technology, we've collaborated in what we call our discovery phase. And it's really a term of art for analyzing and documenting in detail all the things that we use ECFS for to accomplish our work here at the FCC. So, that includes all the bureaus and offices here in the Commission and we've worked together to kind of incorporate any suggestions and to make sure that we document how people internally use the system. And, we've incorporated all of those processes and suggestions. We've included the Inspector General's Office, the General Accountability Office, and really had a clear understanding of our core functions. So, that's -- we can make sure that we have everything incorporated in the new system. So, and that has, you know, taken an extended amount of time. So, where we are now in discovery is we're working on our second phase. And, that includes our external stakeholders. And so, once we've completed determining all those issues with the external stakeholders, we think we will have a system that would allow us to best serve the public. So, what types of improvements have we already thought about? So, we focused on various areas. There's the authentication and roles. And so, that would be similar to like a commercial user, like online shopping where a user can interact with the system, either as a registered user or as a guest. The idea being it will be convenient for people who frequently file, but would also not require those people who aren't -- really don't want to register. So, making it convenient for all types of users. Security of incoming filings and processes. We plan to use CAPTCHA or something similar, a software to distinguish from machine input or spam in ECFS which has happened in the past. And so, we're looking to make sure that we avoid those types of issues that have happened in the past and to keep pace with technology. We also have looked at the petition for rulemaking and docket creation, docketed and nondocketed filing process, how we can make those processes easier for both internal and external users and much more automated than it has been in the past. And, another area we've looked at is reporting and analytics. They're -- we have a lot of data and valuable data in our system. And so, how can we provide software that's used to access that data in a way that makes it easier to offload and so that internal and external users can more easily, you know, analyze the data according to whatever needs you have. I think our idea basically is, how can we make it more user friendly with this data that we collect every day? So, how do we plan on doing external outreach? While we will be hosting in October and early November a roundtable session, several roundtable sessions because we really do value the input from external stakeholders. And we want to have a comprehensive approach, and so we need your feedback to help us make the system the best it can be. And, we want it to be as helpful as possible and so we need your input to do that. So, if you are interested in attending a roundtable session, we would love to hear from you and we're here today to take any suggestions or questions that you might have. So, thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Do we have any questions from the floor here? Johnny? MEMBER KAMPIS: I was going to say if you're doing the security, I don't know if this counts as CAPTCHA or not, but you're doing a thing where you've got to identify the cars in the photos, don't do that. It's always like, is that a car in the background? Those things are impossible. MS. DORTCH: I know what you mean. CHAIR POCIASK: Anyone else in the room? Anyone on the phone, any questions? (Off-microphone comments.) CHAIR POCIASK: Yes? Yes. Yes, identify yourself, please. MR. MAKE: Hi, everyone, I'm Jonathan Make in the Communications Daily. Obviously, we're, you know -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: We can't hear you. MR. MAKE: Hi, everyone, Jonathan Make at Communications Daily. Obviously, we're always interested in ECFS enhancements. I just wanted to ask Marlene or Sheryl, when you talk about automation, could that also or will that likely also include OIOA filings to be posted more in real time like EDGAR is an example at the SEC where there doesn't necessarily have to be staff intervention, staff can still see the filings and, you know, manipulate and sort them but don't necessarily need to, you know, trigger them to be posted. So, I was just curious about that. CHAIR POCIASK: So, the redesign -- about the redesign, you know, will things be posted? I mean, how will that, more timely, how will that be affected? MS. DORTCH: I appreciate your input and I didn't quite hear exactly what you said, but I know that that is something that we do now. And that we will definitely take down what you've said and make sure that we consider that in our development process. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MS. DORTCH: So, we do have currently we have a two-hour delay. And, the delay is for support to those who do file to make sure that we post what is accurate. So, yes, sometimes, a filer may have made a mistake. Sometimes, every now and then, so we want to make sure that we are timely, but that it gives the filer the opportunity to file what they intend to file. CHAIR POCIASK: So, there's a buffer there. MS. DORTCH: Right. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, Christina, you have a -- MS. CLEARWATER: Oh, yes. Marlene, is this on? Yes. So, my question to you is about the consideration of a verification process so that, are you guys considering looking at any kind of enhanced verification process so that there is a way to authenticate that the filer is actually the filer of the particular document? Are you guys exploring that at all? MS. DORTCH: Yes, we have, if you want to elaborate on the technology? MS. SEGAL: There's a balance between authentication and free -- allowing people to freely file without having a chilling effect. So, we have to be careful not to inhibit people from filing and that sometimes means that we get filings that are perhaps frivolous, to be kind. And, we rely on the discretion of the attorneys who analyze the incoming filings to differentiate. But we also are looking at the -- we are hoping that the roles that we establish will help minimize those kinds of filings. MS. CLEARWATER: Thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Vonda, do you have a question? MEMBER LONG-DILLARD: Hi, this relates to searchability. Do you expect improvements to, say, you know, Rulemaking can be extremely long, over a year's time. So, if something -- if one pulls up, you know, an order or an NPRM and an FMPRM, and it goes back, so they know the most current one, but it may have started, say, in 1998. Will there be some kind of branch association with all of this? I'm not speaking to the comments, because that would be extremely difficult. But just associate a given rulemaking documents that the FCC releases would be great, all of them. MS. DORTCH: Thank you for that suggestion. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Steve, I've got a -- CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I think my question was even more basic than that, Vonda. Mine was just -- am I on? CHAIR POCIASK: No. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: No, I'm not on. CHAIR POCIASK: There you go. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Now I'm on. My question was even more basic about improving the search capabilities. And, I didn't know if that was part of what you were also working on was helping consumers to be able to search for filings and by subject matter, which is sometimes very challenging. So, I wasn't sure if that was part of this as well. MS. DORTCH: Again, thank you for the suggestion. Yes, that is what we are looking at how we can use technology now that, you know, before we did the best we could with what we had. So, I think with technology now, we can certainly improve on our search capabilities and that is one of the major focuses of what we hope to do with this new system. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. We have another question? Yeah. MEMBER WEIN: Hi, Olivia Wein, National Consumer Law Center. I just wanted to know a little bit more about the next step processes. So, if groups or stakeholders were interested in providing input and sort of what are these entry points? So, will there be a notice sent out about the October, November roundtables? Will there be particular questions you're interested in feedback on? And then, sort of post roundtable discussions if there are outside groups that would like to provide some input. What would be their best avenue into providing them, you know? MS. DORTCH: I think our next phase is the external stakeholder meetings. And, we will be sending out invitations to external groups who are -- and if you are interested, please let us know and we will make sure that we reach out to you specifically. And, that's our next phase. And, as each -- as we move forward, we will determine what the phase after that will look like. So, but in each process, making sure that we get input from as many people as possible, groups as possible. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, thank you, Olivia. Just -- Scott? MR. MARSHALL: Yes, it's Scott Marshall. And, I'm here hopefully. Marlene, we have an electronic distribution list for CAC. So, if you have a notice about these external meetings that you're inviting people to, I'd be happy to send it out. It would not be a CAC activity because we have to, as you probably know, post in the Federal Register when we meet and all the rest of that stuff. CHAIR POCIASK: It's informational. MR. MARSHALL: As you well know, but it's informational and individual members of the CAC can, as they have done in the past, participate in roundtables and provide you with the information you need and do it quite quickly. MS. DORTCH: Thank you, that's very helpful. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. So, just let me check the phone if there's any questions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: And, hearing none, thank you Marlene and Sheryl. I appreciate you coming out and giving us an update on that. MS. DORTCH: Thank you and thank you for your input. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: So, we have another item here on our agenda is the consideration of robocall blocking recommendation. Before I turn it over to Brain Young, Sam's not here today, so it'll be up you. But I just wanted to note, again, up front that the Robocall Working Group has done an incredible job, put in a lot of hard work, two calls a week. Just been a dedicated effort to meet a very, very short timeline and thanks to everyone in that working group for contributing and participating and work. And, thank you and Sam for the leadership in getting this done. So, we've come up with a -- the working group has come up with a recommendation on the robocall blocking. And so, at this time, let me call on Brian Young to explain the recommendation to the CAC. MR. MARSHALL: And, Brian will also move adoption for the working group and we'll need a second to get discussion started. MEMBER YOUNG: There we go. Thank you for those -- am I on? Yes. Thank you for those kind words, Steve. Good afternoon, as Steve mentioned Sam is unavailable to join. He's in London experiencing some technical difficulties in joining the bridge. But the Robocall Working Group was tasked with determining how consumers should be educated about the types of calls that may be blocked, how providers could notify consumers that calls have been blocked, what types of calls should be included on the critical calls list, and how the Commission should define outbound numbers of 9-1-1 call centers. Now, over a period of eight weeks, the working group met 11 times and solicited feedback from several CAC members that were not serving on our working group to ensure that all perspectives could be included in this document. Now, you all have the recommendation in front of you so I won't bore you by going through it line by line. But generally, our recommendation suggests that service providers clearly disclose the types of calls that can be blocked as well as the risks that a legitimate call could be blocked as well. Now, this information should be followed with clear instructions on how to opt out if the consumer should choose to do so. Similarly, the recommendation suggests that consumers should be able to manage their choices through a customer portal of some sort via trained store employees or other options that are provided by the provider. The recommendation also suggests that once the opt out program is introduced, that consumers should be notified of its presence at the point of sale, in consumer bills, online, by mail, as well as other means that the provider chooses. The recommendation also suggests that consumers should be appropriately notified when a call is blocked and have access to a blocked call log or a similar tool that consumers can access at will to find out if calls intended for them are indeed blocked. Similarly, the recommendation states that consumers should have options to easily report numbers that have been erroneously blocked. Now, the working group felt the FCC has a role to play in educating consumers. As such, the Commission should collaborate with the Federal Trade Commission, consumer groups, industry, state attorneys generals, libraries, broadcasters, as well as to utilize social media methods to help ensure that the word is getting pushed out about the types of options consumers have as well as the rights to opt out if they should choose to do so. After much deliberation, the working group determined that critical call lists should remain as narrow as possible and include government numbers only with a few carefully considered exemptions for genuine emergency calls. The list should include outbound numbers employed by public safety answering points, or PSAP as well as the backup PSAP numbers, FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, as well as all government numbers used to make emergency calls regarding threats to physical safety or that are needed for benefits and government services. We believe that the list should be reviewed periodically and to add new numbers and to remove redundant numbers. During the review process, we urge the Commission to remember that the FCC is to remain cognizant to that as the lists -- the size of the list increases as does its potential to become more vulnerable to fraud and abuse. Further, it is our suggestions that the operators of the critical calls list should rely on emergency entities themselves to report the relevant numbers back to the database and then that the database operator must employ a vetting process to ensure that the numbers fall into one of the categories I listed above. And, that, in brief, is our recommendation. So, are there any questions? CHAIR POCIASK: Well, before we do that, the working group should move to adopt them. MEMBER YOUNG: And, with that, I move to that the full CAC adopt the recommendations. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, now, we have a second? MEMBER UMANSKY: Second. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, with that, now let's open it up for questions, discussions, and amendments or whatever, if we're ready to go. Anyone have any questions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Or any discussion? This is well vetted I think. Anyone on the call still? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MEMBER HILDEBRAND: No questions. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay, no questions, no discussion, no amendments? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Shall we call for a vote? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Call for a vote. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Okay, so, with that, do we -- yes, all in favor, say aye. (Chorus of aye.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Those opposed, nay? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. And, abstentions? Any abstentions? (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: Unanimous. (Applause.) CHAIR POCIASK: Wow, so with that -- MR. MARSHALL: Congratulations, everybody. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, so, with that then, we have adopted the recommendation that had come out of the Robocall Block Working Group. And, that recommendation will be -- I will file, you know, with the FCC and send it to the Commissioners for their attention. So, thank you everyone for your hard work. Before I do anything else, let me just give Debbie the microphone for a second. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes. I'm glad I can say this after it passed unanimously rather than during the discussion time, I just want to pour many accolades on this working group for all the hard work that went into producing an excellent document in record time. It was a group effort but I also want to thank my colleague, Brian Young, National Consumers League Alternate on this working group for stepping up and leading and ably partnered with Sam for this great effort. So, you know, thank you so much, Brian. Sam's not here today to also get the thanks, but thank you so much for everything that you did to make this a superb effort. You know, I also want to thank a couple of other members of the working group who participated with writing drafts and, you know, stepped up to volunteer to do that. So, it was a great group effort. So, thank you everyone in this working group for the great product that you produced. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: It's honestly wonderful, so thank you. CHAIR POCIASK: Here, here. (Applause.) VICE CHAIR BERLYN: And a great presentation, yes. Thank you, well done. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, thanks so much. So, with that, as we wrap up, I just want to, first, let me just open it up, see if there's any comments from the public. (No audible response.) CHAIR POCIASK: And, hearing none, let me just note that the CAC next meeting will be December 9th. Okay, and just a reminder as well, that at 1:30, we'll have a private working group meeting on the call authentication issue as well as the robocall reporting requirements. So, the authentication ID will be in this room. Okay? And then, the robocall reporting requirements will be in Conference Room C, 402, 445. MR. MARSHALL: And I will show you where it is. CHAIR POCIASK: So, and, I'll have an announcement in just a second, but, yes, Steven? MEMBER MORRIS: Just one question about the possible new working group. Will there be a process for volunteering? If I can't go to the meeting you're having at 1:30. CHAIR POCIASK: Yes. The answer is yes, there will be a process for volunteering for that. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: What is the determination for whether or not that becomes a working group? CHAIR POCIASK: I'll let you do that. MR. MARSHALL: Okay, sure, sure. I think it will become a working group. As we did for the previous two working groups, Patrick will send you and Steve a letter with the charge, with the questions to be considered for the working group. And, I think you should have that probably this week. It's in the works. And then, we will go on to do the volunteer solicitation -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I see. Got it. MR. MARSHALL: -- for whether people want to work on that group or not. But the other group, the caller ID group, that's already established, ready to go and has its 13 members, that's as many as we can have on a working group, by the way. And they're going to launch today. But, and we'll get the other group up and running as quickly as possible and the idea there also is to ideally have a recommendation of -- for the December 9th meeting. But we realize that may not be possible, but that's the goal. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Okay. Michael has a question. CHAIR POCIASK: Michael? MR. MARSHALL: One of the co-chairs of the caller ID group. Hi, Michael. MEMBER SANTORELLI: Okay, well, thank you. So, Thaddeus and I are co-chairs of the working group as was mentioned. First of all, we look forward to hopefully hearing from Brian and Sam offline as to best practices for getting this done because I think we have a similarly compressed timeline. But we were just curious as if it makes sense to maybe see who in our working group is planning to join us today, just given the confusion around the meeting time, wondering if folks could indicate if they were planning to stay. And, if we don't have a -- CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, a show of hands. Let's do that. MR. MARSHALL: You also have one person who's going to be calling in on the phone that I'm aware of. MEMBER SANTORELLI: Okay, great. So, is that -- (Off-microphone comments.) MEMBER HILDEBRAND: Kyle Hildebrand will call in. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: How many? MR. MARSHALL: Hildebrand and another one, Brian Hurley will call in. (Off-microphone comments.) MEMBER SANTORELLI: Okay. So, I'm wondering if we might do this remotely then, given that only less than half of the members are -- would be able to join or -- MR. MARSHALL: So, yes, if there's not enough people, you don't think it would be valuable -- CHAIR POCIASK: Well, let's see, Thaddeus, you had a comment? MR. MARSHALL: Thaddeus, go ahead. MEMBER JOHNSON: Yes. So, what was the final number of people? Did we have six people? MR. MARSHALL: Thirteen you have in the group. MEMBER JOHNSON: Thirteen? And, a total of six people today were able to make it? Seven? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I saw six hands. MR. MARSHALL: Yes, that's a quorum. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I saw six hands myself. I don't know. How many people are here -- well, we don't have to go through it. We've got to do this differently. CHAIR POCIASK: So -- (Off-microphone comments.) MEMBER JOHNSON: Okay, so maybe we'll chat among the group members immediately afterward and see what everyone's schedules are. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Can I ask how many people are planning to stay for the discussion on -- the other discussion? CHAIR POCIASK: So, on the caller ID authentication? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Caller ID authentication, raise of hands, how many are planning to stay for that? MR. MARSHALL: The reporting requirements you're talking about? CHAIR POCIASK: Yes, yes. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Not the caller ID, I'm sorry, not that. The name of the other one? CHAIR POCIASK: Oh, reporting requirements. MR. MARSHALL: Reporting requirements. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: What are we calling that one? MR. MARSHALL: Reporting requirements. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Reporting requirements, thank you. We need a new name. Okay, reporting requirements. MR. MARSHALL: That's what you can call it, you can come up with a better name than that. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Yes, we need a good name for that. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: All right. (Off-microphone comments.) MR. MARSHALL: It's what Karen was talking about, Karen Schroeder. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: How many are staying for that? One, two -- CHAIR POCIASK: Two, three -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Three, four. One, two, three, four, five. CHAIR POCIASK: Six. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Five, six. CHAIR POCIASK: I make seven. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: I may stay. Okay. MR. MARSHALL: So, we'll continue to do it or are we postponing things? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Lunch is not here is it? I don't see lunch. MS. CLEARWATER: Not yet. It should be here about -- in about 20 minutes. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. Well, I mean, maybe it's just worthwhile, you know, if we want to, we can just have an informal discussion and then talk about, you know, maybe setting up, you know, a next call or something like that just to kind of get things moving. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Is it possible to start this now? CHAIR POCIASK: We could. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Instead of waiting until 1:30? It's 12:30. CHAIR POCIASK: Right. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: It's 12:20, why are we waiting until 1:30? CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Anybody want to do that? MEMBER SANTORELLI: Well, I think the working group sessions are private. They're not public, so. MEMBER ROOKER: I've already called my driver twice. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Well, we need to know when we're starting in order to know when we stop. MEMBER ROOKER: When it's going to end? Can we just kind of get something here so that -- CHAIR POCIASK: How about -- let's just do this then, then if -- (Simultaneous speaking.) CHAIR POCIASK: If we're set today with the full, you know, CAC, then why don't we move to adjourn and then we'll continue discussion as break out groups so we can keep things private? MEMBER ROOKER: Well, how long are we going to do that is what I'm asking? VICE CHAIR BERLYN: No, your point is well taken, let's adjourn. MEMBER ROOKER: We adjourn and then we'll have the discussion group, the one that we're going to do the ID -- CHAIR POCIASK: We'll go immediately after and we'll just see if it has legs, we'll continue with it, or we'll just, you know. MEMBER ROOKER: That doesn't help me in terms of when I'm leaving because I've got an appointment to get to. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: But, Shirley, his point is let's adjourn and have it and then continue the discussion on logistics. MEMBER ROOKER: I understand that. I understand that, okay, never mind. CHAIR POCIASK: Okay. MR. MARSHALL: We're scheduled to originally -- VICE CHAIR BERLYN: Ask for a motion to adjourn. CHAIR POCIASK: All right, so, let's ask for a motion to adjourn. VICE CHAIR BERLYN: So moved. CHAIR POCIASK: And second. And, with that, this session has ended. MR. MARSHALL: All in favor? CHAIR POCIASK: All right. All in favor? (Chorus of aye.) CHAIR POCIASK: And, we have adjourned. (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 12:22 p.m.)