Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC: PTT Subject To CALEA

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 20:53:55 -0400

FCC: PTT Subject To CALEA
BY MARK ROCKWELL
AUGUST 4, 2004

WASHINGTON -- At a lengthy regular monthly meeting this morning, the FCC
acted on a laundry list of wireless-related items aimed at strengthening
homeland security and aiding emergency responders.
FCC commissioners voted to include wireless push-to-talk services under
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requirements.
The agency ruled that such services should be subject to the same
court-ordered surveillance capabilities that wireline and other wireless
services are. Both content and addressing information is included in
that coverage, depending on what a particular court order mandates of a
carrier, said Ed Thomas, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and
Technology.

The ruling means commercial mobile radio services (CMRS) providers like
Cingular Wireless that have PTT offerings now have to meet CALEA
requirements. Nextel Communications, one of the largest providers of PTT
services, already has met CALEA requirements under separate negotiation
with the commission.

Competitors that advocated such treatment were enthusiastic. "The
Federal Communications Commission struck directly at criminals and
terrorists today in deciding that all voice communications --
irrespective of technology -- are covered under the nation's wiretap
laws," said Steve Zipperstein, Verizon Wireless vice president and
general counsel in a statement released after the FCC meeting.  "Verizon
Wireless advocated this result, and strongly agrees that law
enforcement, when armed with court-sanctioned authority, needs the
ability to listen into suspected criminals and terrorists whether they
are communicating through traditional voice technologies or using newer
VoIP or push-to-talk services."

The commission also voted to make network outage reporting by wireless
carriers mandatory, but worked to keep the reports confidential. It had
proposed making the rules mandatory back in February and had moved
quickly to get the proposal through the comment cycle. "I'm thrilled
that we did this quickly, particularly in the case of things having to
do with homeland security, [where] the mantra is 'you can’t go fast
enough,'" said FCC Chairman Michael Powell in remarks to reporters after
the meeting.

Under the new rules, wireless carriers have to report "significant"
service outages, which would be outages affecting 900,000 caller-minutes
or above, to the commission in detail, according to Thomas. Outage
reports also are required whenever "critical facilities" such as major
airports or E911 facilities are involved.

Wireless carriers had been able to report outages on a voluntary basis
up until now and hadn't filed detailed information for fear of
competitive weakness and the potential of making their networks
vulnerable to sabotage. The FCC incorporated those concerns in its new
rules, excluding them from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules. At
the same time it also made wireline outage reports, which have been
publicly available for 10 years, inaccessible through FOIA.

Carriers will use an electronic template via a secure Internet
connection to file the reports.
Among other wireless initiatives, the commission implemented a new rule
that would flatly prohibit marketers from sending unsolicited spam to
wireless phones.  The commission voted to implement rules under the
Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing
(CAN-SPAM) Act that define what wireless spam is and how it should be
barred. The FCC said material covered would include "any commercial
message sent to an electronic mail address provided by a CMRS provider
specifically for delivery to the subscriber's wireless device." The FCC
will create a public list of wireless domain names for commercial
messaging companies to check their addresses against.

The agency also began the process of gathering comments on how to expand
the nation's aging Emergency Alert System (EAS) be expanded beyond
traditional television and radio technology to encompass wireless
devices.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=newsat2direct&starting=1&pubdate=08/04/04

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