CPNI

After months of debate and speculation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its order last month reclassifying broadband internet access service (BIAS) as a telecommunications service subject to common carriage regulations under Title II of the Communications Act.1 In so doing the FCC reversed its order of 2017 classifying BIAS as an information service under the Act (and thus not subject to common carriage regulation). It also reinstated rules that prohibit BIAS providers from blocking or throttling access to content, sites, or applications (or categories of content, sites, or applications), prioritizing third-party traffic in exchange for consideration, prioritizing traffic from affiliates, and engaging in broadly defined unreasonable discrimination in the offering of BIAS.Continue Reading The FCC’s Net Neutrality Order: Going Beyond Blocking, Throttling, and Fast Lanes

The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has adopted rules to address two fraudulent practices that “bad actors use to take control of consumers’ cell phone accounts and wreak havoc on people’s financial and digital lives without ever gaining physical control of the consumer’s phone.”

In its recent Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released November 16, 2023, the Commission first addressed the practice where bad actors are able to swap a consumer’s subscriber identity module (“SIM”) card to a wireless device associated with a different SIM (i.e., SIM card swap fraud). The agency also acted on wireless number porting fraud, where bad actors impersonate a customer and convince the provider to port the real customer’s telephone number to a new wireless provider and a device that the bad actor controls (i.e., port-out fraud). Continue Reading FCC Acts to Protect Consumer Data by Strengthening Customer Proprietary Network Information and Number Porting Rules