At its April 25 Open Meeting, the FCC adopted (1) its new Net Neutrality Declaratory Ruling, Order, Report and Order, & Order on Reconsideration (Net Neutrality Order) along a party line vote and (2) a 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Georouting Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (988 Georouting NPRM) with unanimous approval. The Net Neutrality Order restores the Title II reclassification of broadband that had been previously adopted in 2015 and subsequently reversed during former Chairman Ajit Pai’s tenure. Predictably, the Net Neutrality item was a hotbed of political ire, particularly as Commissioner Brandon Carr in an oral dissenting statement attempted to characterize the item as resulting from a “forced” directive of former President Barack Obama (despite being out of office for eight years) and essentially baits the item as fodder to justify overturning Chevron deference. The 988 Georouting NPRM sets the stage for implementing a georouting solution to ensure that all wireless calls to the 988 Lifeline are routed based on the caller’s actual location rather than the exchange and area code of the caller’s handset. Neither item has been released as of this publication.
