Tag Archive for: Carriers

FCC says carriers failed Florida after hurricane—but lets them off the hook

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking at a press conference on October 1, 2018, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Mark Wilson )

The Federal Communications Commission isn’t punishing carriers for their horrible response to Hurricane Michael in Florida, despite a commission investigation finding that the carriers’ mistakes prolonged outages caused by the hurricane.

Mobile carriers’ response to the hurricane was so bad that even FCC Chairman Ajit Pai—who normally avoids any criticism of the industry he’s paid to regulate—called it “completely unacceptable” in October 2018. Outages left many customers without cell service for more than a week, as Verizon and others struggled to restore service.

Pai initiated an investigation and released the FCC Public Safety Bureau’s resulting report yesterday. The report recommends changes that carriers can make to improve future hurricane responses, and Pai said he is “call[ing] on wireless phone companies, other communications providers, and power companies to quickly implement the recommendations contained in this report.”

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Biz & IT – Ars Technica

FCC clears path for carriers to block more robocalls

The FCC this morning voted 3-0 to give carriers new regulatory cover to combat annoying and oftentimes fraudulent robocalls. The decision backs an ongoing effort begun last year with the establishment of a special government/industry task force.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called today’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking “an important first step in ending the scourge of robocalls.”

Specifically, the new rules would assure carriers that they are allowed to block calls originating from unassigned numbers and other obvious attempts at fraud such as numbers using 411 or 911 as an area code.

In October the FCC reported that a trial of one such anti-spoofing measure cut IRS scam robocalls by 90 percent.

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Network World Paul McNamara

Report: Google pressuring OEMs and carriers to speed up Android updates, security patches – 9 to 5 Google


9 to 5 Google

Report: Google pressuring OEMs and carriers to speed up Android updates, security patches
9 to 5 Google
Android has long been plagued by a lack of timely operating system and security updates. According to Bloomberg, Google may finally be cracking down on the problem through a variety of methods, including a publication of a list that ranks OEMs. The
Google Steps Up Pressure on Partners Tardy in Updating AndroidBloomberg
Google may turn up heat on carriers, manufacturers over pace of Android updatesDigital Trends
Google begins spin about taking security seriouslyiTWire

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