Earlier today, the Federal Communications Commission released the agenda for its February 15, 2012 Open Meeting.  Included in the Agenda are two items of particular interest:

FCC to Consider Extending Outage Reporting Rules to I-VoIP and Broadband Service Providers 

TITLE:  The Proposed Extension of Part 4 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Outage Reporting to Interconnected Voice Over Internet Protocol Service Providers and Broadband Internet Service Providers (PS Docket No. 11-82)

SUMMARY:   The Commission will consider a Report and Order to extend outage reporting under Part IV of the rules to interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers. Extended reporting will enable the Commission to fulfill statutory E9-1-1 obligations and help protect the growing number of Americans who rely on VOIP phone service.

FCC to Consider Restrictive “Robocall” Rules

TITLE:  Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (CG Docket No. 02-278)

SUMMARY:   The Commission will consider a Report and Order that protects consumers from unwanted autodialed or prerecorded calls (“robocalls”) by adopting rules that ensure consumers have given prior express consent before receiving robocalls, can easily opt out of further robocalls, and will experience “abandoned” telemarketing calls only in strictly limited instances.

A copy of the FCC’s February 15th Open Meeting agenda is available here:  httpss://prodnet.www.neca.org/publicationsdocs/wwpdf/2812agenda.pdf

If you have questions about this advisory, please contact the attorney assigned to your account.