May Open Meeting Agenda

On May 19, the FCC will be hosting our May Open Agenda Meeting. Here are the policy items we have lined up for what will be a busy week at the Commission:

• We’re cracking down on the hardest-to-stop international robocallers. Many scam robocall campaigns originate outside the United States. We will consider an Order to require gateway providers, which are the point of entry for foreign calls, to use new caller ID authentication tools and perform robocall mitigation. We are also seeking comment on a new requirement to keep bad actors from facilitating illegal international robocalls.
• We’re bringing faster, better broadband to rural America. In 2016, the Commission developed the Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) to improve the Commission’s universal service support for high-cost and hard-to-serve rural areas. The Commission will consider a proposal to create an Enhanced A-CAM program that would offer additional financial support to rural areas in exchange for increased broadband deployment obligations to additional locations and at higher speeds.
• We’re improving critical communications during emergencies. When it comes to restoring service after outages or deciding which calls can get through congested networks during an emergency, the FCC has rules to make sure the communications of national security and emergency response personnel are prioritized. But it’s been decades since the Commission updated these rules. We will vote to modernize and update our priority services rules to keep pace with advances in technology, the marketplace, and governance.
• We’re providing regulatory relief to FM radio broadcasters. When seeking a license, FM radio stations using directional antennas are required to provide physical measurements to verify their directional pattern. To do this, stations must either build a full-size mockup of the antenna or build a scale model. We will consider an Order that would allow broadcasters to verify patterns using computer modeling rather than real-world testing. This will decrease regulatory costs and bring our FM regulations in line with other broadcast services.
• We will also consider an item from our Enforcement Bureau.

—Jessica