In Re: )

)

CONSUMER/DISABILITY )

TELECOMMUNICATIONS )

ADVISORY COMMITTEE )

(C/DTAC) MEETING )

Volume: 1

Pages: 1 through 228

Place: Washington, D.C.

Date: November 8, 2002

Before the

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Washington, D.C.

In Re: )

)

CONSUMER/DISABILITY )

TELECOMMUNICATIONS )

ADVISORY COMMITTEE )

(C/DTAC) MEETING )

Courtroom TW-C305

Federal Communications Commission

445 12th Street, S.W.

Washington, D.C.

Friday,

November 8, 2002

The parties met, pursuant to the notice of the

Commission, at 9:15 a.m.

APPEARANCES:

SHIRLEY ROOKER

Committee Chair

K. DANE SNOWDEN

Chief, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau

KRIS MONTEITH

Associate Bureau Chief for

Intergovernmental Affairs

THOMAS CHANDLER

Acting Chief, Disability Rights Office

MICHELE WALTERS

Chief, Policy Division

ERICA MCMAHON

Attorney-Advisor, CGB

RICHARD SMITH

Attorney-Advisor, CGB

APPEARANCES (continued):

MARGARET EGLER

Deputy Bureau Chief (Policy), CGB

THOMAS WYATT

Deputy Bureau Chief

(Inquiries and Complaints), CGB

IRSHAD ABDAL-HAQQ

Attorney-Advisor

Consumer Affairs and Outreach Division, CGB

PAUL GALLANT

Chair, Media Ownership Working Group

Media Bureau

[P R O C E E D I N G S]{.underline}

(9:15 a.m.)

MS. ROOKER: Good morning. I\'d like to welcome you to our November
meeting of the C/DTAC. I never know how to pronounce that or what to say
about it.

I\'m Shirley Rooker. I\'m the president of Call for Action, and it\'s my
pleasure to start this meeting. I\'d like to kick it off by having us go
around the table and each of you introduce yourselves and tell us what
company or organization that you\'re with. Since I\'ve just accomplished
that, let\'s just start to my right with this gentleman here.

MR. MARSHALL: I\'m Strom Marshall, FCC staff.

MS. HARKINS: Judy Harkins, Gallaudet University.

MR. KRAMER: Jeff Kramer, AARP.

MR. ALMOND: Ben Cingular Wireless.

MR. BECKER: Gil Becker, National Association for State Relay
Administration.

MS. WILLIAMS: Andrea Williams, Cellular Telecommunications and Internet
Association.

MS. BATTAT: Brenda Battat with Self Help for Hard of Hearing People.
Good morning.

MR. STOUT: My name Is Claude Stout and I\'m with Telecommunications
Incorporated for the Deaf, and we are a Consumer Action Network group.
Good morning to everyone.

MR. KALTENBACH: Matt Kaltenbach, Sony Ericsson.

MR. SEGALMAN: California Department of Rehab. and Speech to Speech.

MS. GRANT: Good morning. I\'m Susan Grant, National Consumer\'s League,
and let me take this opportunity to say that we just put out a brochure
about going wireless with a grant from Sprint, and I set some copies on
the table. It\'s hot off the presses, and I hope you like it. Thank you.

MS. BURSTEIN: Good morning. I\'m Diane Burstein with the National Cable
and Telecommunications Association.

MR. GOLDBERG: Hi. I\'m Larry Goldberg from the WGBH Media Access Group
and The National Center for Accessible Media.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: I\'m Nanci Linke-Ellis. I\'m with what used to be
called TRIPOD Captioned Films which is now becoming Insight Cinema.

MS. RUBY: Hi. I\'m Laura Ruby with Microsoft.

MR. TOBIAS: Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies.

MR. LUDWICK: Good morning. I\'m Paul Ludwick with Sprint.

MS. AYLWARD: Just looking around the table, it seemed like just a few
short meetings ago every face was strange, and now it looks like we\'re
a table of friends and that\'s great. I\'m Rayna Aylward with the
Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Bob Chrostowski, Telecommunications Industry
Association.

MR. BENNETT: Hi. Matt Bennett, Alliance for Public Technology.

MR. TAKEMURA: Michael Takemura with Hewlett-Packard.

MR. DEL CASINO: Mike DelCasino from AT&T.

MS. ROOKER: We also have a couple of people who are joining us by
telephone this morning. Ken McEldowney is going to be joining us a
little bit late, and David Lowenstein, are you there?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: I am.

MS. ROOKER: Good morning.

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Good morning.

MS. ROOKER: Do you want to introduce yourself?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Yes, hi. I\'m David Lowenstein with the National Urban
League.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much. We\'re glad to have you.

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Thanks.

MS. ROOKER: If we forget you, shout at us or something.

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Thank you very much. Oh, David missed his turn. I
think we\'re going to let David speak.

MR. POEHLMAN: Hi, I\'m David Poehlman. I represent the American Council
of the Blind, and it\'s very good to be here. We have a nice beautiful
warm spring \-- I mean fall day. I\'ve been in Florida. Please excuse
me. And it\'s good to be back. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, David. Belinda has joined us.

MS. NELSON: Good morning. I\'m Belinda Nelson from Gila River
Telecommunications.

MS. ROOKER: Anybody else new that\'s joined the table? Okay.

Well, thank you very much, and welcome. I would like to do a few thank
yous for people who helped make this meeting possible. I\'d like to
thank Paul Ludwick and Sprint for breakfast and lunch. We really
appreciate that.

I\'d also like to thank Suzanne Perrin and Betty Thompson for their
logistical support, and of course, there\'s always that person that I
have to thank who really makes it all run, and that\'s Scott Marshall.
He gets aggravated every time I do that, but nevertheless, it wouldn\'t
happen without Scott, I\'ll tell you that.

Now, it\'s my great pleasure to introduce to you Dane Snowden who is the
Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. Dane you\'re
here, I believe with us? Yes. Thank you. Good morning. Please join me in
welcoming him.

MR. SNOWDEN: I want to echo a couple of comments I heard a second ago.
One is David I wish you had brought some of that warm weather from
Florida to Washington, D.C., and Rayna, I think you\'re right.

As I look around this room, I remember when I first joined a year
and-a-half ago, I didn\'t know anybody here. Now I actually look around,
I know a lot of friends that I can say it is a pleasure to see all of
you back here in Washington.

Well, good morning. Thank you for coming back. On behalf of the Chairman
and our Commissioners and, of course, the entire staff at the FCC, I
want to extend our welcome and appreciation for you and for your work.

We all extend our appreciation to this advisory committee, and thank you
for your advice, your support, your guidance over the past two years.

Please indulge me for a second. I would like to introduce a new member
of my staff who is my new Chief of Staff, Ms. June Taylor. June, if you
could stand up. She\'s over here to my right.

You all may recall my former Chief of Staff, Barbara Douglas. She is
still with the Commission, however, the Chairman has asked her to take a
new role in our Office of Workplace Diversity, so I have lost Barbara
but I have gained a wonderful asset in June and the Commission\'s gained
two wonderful people.

This morning I would like to take a few minutes to bring you up to speed
on some of the activities of the Commission. In addition, I want to
highlight some of your good work.

As all of you know, the telecom sector is in need of economic recovery
\-- and I apologize to you folks, but this is where I was told to speak.
I know you have to turn around like that, but if you want to move your
chairs around now, please go ahead. If you want to watch the monitors, I
won\'t be offended

As I was saying, the telecom sector is in great need of some type of
economic recovery amid the recent scandals and bankruptcies that we\'ve
all been reading about. I thought it was a good idea to share with you
Chairman Powell\'s vision for pulling this sector out of the trial and
tribulations that they\'re in now.

He recently gave testimony to a Senate hearing, and I wanted to
highlight one of the ideas he had when he presented a pyramid. If you
were ever in his office, he has this \-- I call it the virtual pyramid
because it\'s life-sized. It has six different steps to receiving or
achieving economic recovery.

The first step is protecting consumers. I thought for this group, that
would resonate very well as potential consumers buying sharing
continuity of service. Particularly when you look at the area of
World-Com and bankruptcies that we\'ve seen, it\'s very important that
we insure the consumers are protected.

The second step is routing out corporate fraud and prosecuting corporate
wrongdoers. The third is restoring financial health by
telecommunications companies, paying down their approximately \$1
Trillion of debt they are currently carrying. The fourth step is prudent
industry restructuring that promotes competition.

The fifth step is new revenue through new services, and as this group
has talked about, broad band is a key portion to bringing new service
and new revenue for this sector. The sixth is reform economic and
regulatory foundations, and that deals mainly with our state and other
regulatory counterparts.

Now, protecting consumers has been a key theme during the chairman\'s
tenure. This theme is embraced by each of the Commission and, of course,
everyone here at the staff.

Recently the Commission has been vigilant in enforcing its roles, and as
some of you may know, we recently imposed a \$6 Million forfeiture
against a telecommunications company, it was SBC, for a series of
violations of our local competition rules. It\'s important to know that
this is the highest forfeiture in the history of the Commission.

In addition, we are seeing positive results from our \-- created in the
year 2000. Coupled with Outreach and coordination with our state
counterparts, the Commission has increased its efforts to bring
resolution and restitution to consumers who have been slammed.

Now many ask if slamming is on the rise. I personally contend that
through the efforts of the Commission, our state counterparts, and
C/DTAC, more consumers now are aware of what slamming is and, more
importantly, what they can do about it. So the bottom line on slamming
is the rules are working, and the consumers and the industry are
benefitting from them.

Now, before I discuss some of the other major activities of the
Commission, I wanted to clarify an issue regarding our quarterly report
that I have been told caused some confusion among members of this
committee.

While I know other members of my staff are scheduled to discuss our
complaint in inquiry and analysis processes, I too wanted to discuss
this matter of our quarterly report.

The issue in question for those of you who are not familiar with it, it
centers on a perceived discrepancy over the data that was published by
the Commission and data that we gave to IEEE as a professional courtesy.

Let me say for the record that we double checked, and there are no
discrepancies. Further, let me assure this committee that since the
reform of the agency, the Commission through the Consumer and
Governmental Affairs Bureau has centralized our complaint process to
insure that all information is captured in a uniform way.

In addition, we created an analysis plan to further insure that all data
collected to be analyzed and incorporated into our rule making and
outreach responsibilities.

I understand that there was an e-mail in circulation about this issue
that was not directed to the Commission. I ask that in the future if you
have a concern relating to the way in which we present the quarterly
report or about any of our procedures, by all means, please bring them
to my attention or bring them to this advisory committee.

This body here is the appropriate means of voicing your concerns and
creating proposals for the Commission\'s review. We have always
benefitted from the contributions made from your focused review of the
Commission\'s initiatives.

Now, an area that I do ask that you focus on is digital television. Now
some of you when you came in through our lobby, you probably saw a
wonderful television set that we all would like to have in our homes,
and pretty soon we all will.

I know our security force here, they love when the Sunday football games
are on. I don\'t think they\'re arguing over who gets to protect the
building there because it\'s perfect quality.

As you may know, DTV is probably the most significant development in
television technology since the advent of color televisions since the
1950s. Now, I know some of you are too young to remember the advent of
color television, but indulge me. I know that\'s why my staffing is
laughing.

DTV will provide consumers with a clearer and sharper pictures as well
as CD quality sound and can also provide new uses including data
services. Over 250 stations are now operating which includes over 75% of
U.S. households.

The Commission\'s work in this area began ten years ago, and in 2006,
DTV will replace today\'s analog television. Now, DTV is not just about
pretty pictures. It will open up new avenues for accessing data.

Our challenge \-- when I say challenge, I mean that of the Commission,
manufacturers, and this advisory committee, is to demonstrate to
consumers the value of joining the digital revolution.

As in so many things, the move into the future is exciting and full of
opportunity. We want to let consumers know how they can be a part of the
next innovation in American broadcasting.

Now, the work on DTV started 10 years ago as did the creation of our
telemarketing rules. As many of you know, the Commission is currently
revisiting its telemarketing rules. The common period is still open, and
we are eager to build a full record from consumers, the industry and
states.

Now, everyone knows telemarketing is big business. In fact, it\'s a
\$600 Billion a year industry. We\'ve all seen the advent of new
technologies and telemarketing such as faxes and auto dialers. In
addition, the Commission has seen a significant increase in consumer
complaints and inquiries on this issue, and we felt it was time for
another review.

Through the Commission\'s rule-making process, we strive to find a
balance between legitimate telemarketing and consumer privacy. In the
area of intergovernmental affairs, the Commission kicked off its Indian
Telecommunications Initiative, or ITI.

Lead by Kris Monteith, a senior member of my staff who I believe is here
as well, ITI looks at both Commission policy and outreach strategies to
explore ways in which the FCC can bring affordable, quality telecom
services to native American tribes in Alaskan native tribal communities.

This past September in Arizona, Chairman Powell, Commissioner Cobbs, and
Commission staff participated in the National Summit For Emerging Tribal
Economies. In addition, thanks to the help of two advisory committee
members, Ms. Belinda Nelson and Mr. Vernon James, some of us were
treated to a wonderful visit to the Gila River Indian Community, and I
want to personally thank you, Belinda and Vernon, for your hospitality.
The assistance and support of Belinda and Vernon is an example of the
benefits the Commission has received from this advisory committee.

Over the past few years, we have all benefitted from the important work
of C/DTAC. This advisory committee has helped to identify issues of
concern to consumers from policy matters to information to collection,
to our consumer outreach and education efforts.

I want to also thank Rich Ellis who I know is not here today from
Verizon for asking me to participate in the tenth anniversary of the
Verizon Center for Customers with Disabilities.

In addition, I want to thank Larry Goldberg for hosting me during my
visit to Boston and for the tour of the WGBH studio. That was simply a
treat. I really appreciate that.

Now to your accomplishments. I want to underscore just how important
this committee has been to the Commission. Please indulge me as I
enumerate some of your accomplishments. We are particularly thankful,
first, for your attendance at these meetings. It is not easy, and we
recognize that.

At your last meeting, you asked us to review the burden of travel to and
from these meetings. My staff has researched this matter very carefully,
and unfortunately, the Commission does not have funds to pay the travel
costs of any of its FACA committees, and we have about 10 including
C/DTAC.

However, we are investigating whether the discounted airline and hotel
rates available to Federal employees on official travel could be made
available to advisory committee members. I do not know at this time
whether discount can be extended to the committee members, but we will
continue to look into this matter.

Since your charter began two years ago, C/DTAC has participated in FCC
rule makings regarding various topics within your purview from universal
service to telecommunications services, to the Commission\'s consumer
complaint process.

In addition to making comments on some of our rule makings, this
advisory committee has put a face on some very important issues
affecting consumers. One of these issues is access to emergency
information by people with disabilities.

Your hard work on this issue also reached the attention of another FACA,
the Media Security and Reliability Counsel. Putting this important
matter on their radar screen was quite an accomplishment and I believe a
feather in this advisory committee\'s cap.

Finally, I want to say that I\'m confident that your recommendations
today regarding the Telephone Consumer Protection Act will also be very
valuable to us, and we thank you in advance for your input.

I\'m pleased to share with you today that Chairman Powell has accepted
your new charter recommendation, and we are currently processing it
through the appropriate Federal channels, and there are several that we
need to do. We all hope that the new charter will be approved very soon.

I would also like to end today by saying that the Commission owes you a
debt of gratitude for your service and for your contribution. I want to
personally thank each of you for your candor and for your guidance.

I know in the beginning when I first joined, very few people would
approach me, and now I feel that I get a lot more candor than I get
anything else which is exactly what is appropriate.

As a small token of the Commission\'s appreciation, I would like to
recognize the C/DTAC members here today and present each of you with a
certificate that memorializes your contributions.

I\'ve asked one of my legal advisors, Ms. Amy Brown, to assist in this
effort, so please indulge me as I call each of your names and your
organizations that you represent.

First is Mr. Jeffrey Kramer from AARP. Matt Bennett from Alliance for
Public Technology who\'s representing Paul Schroeder. Mr. David Poehlman
from American Council of the Blind. I don\'t want to get too far ahead
of Amy. Who do you have now? Oh, Michael Del Casino of AT&T. She\'s
already ahead of me, typical legal advisor.

Ben Almond representing Susan Palmer from Cingular Wireless. Roger
Kraft, Communication Service for the Deaf. Dr. Judith Harkins from
Gallaudet University. Belinda Nelson from Gila River Telecommunications,
Inc.

Mike Takemura from Hewlett-Packard. Laura Ruby from Microsoft. Rayna
Aylward from Mitsubishi. Karen Kirsch from National Association of
Broadcasters. Amy\'s earning her keep today. What do you guy\'s think?
Actually, Amy earns her keep everyday.

Diane Burstein who\'s representing Daniel Brenner from the National
Cable Telecommunications Association. Susan Grant, National Consumer
League. Milton Little, National Urban League. He\'s on the phone. We\'ll
send it to you.

Dr. Bob Segalman from Speech to Speech. Brenda Battat, Self Help for
Hard of Hearing People. Matt Kaltenbach from Sony. Matt, I\'m not sure
if I ever told you, but I used to work for Sony many years ago. I
started my career for Sony up in Montville.

Paul Ludwick from Sprint. Robert Chrostowski from Telecommunications
Industry Association. Dirck Hargraves who\'s representing Kate Dean from
the Telecommunications Research & Action Center or TRAC.

Nancy Linke-Ellis from Tripod Captioned Films. Dirck, we have a seat for
you right here if you\'d like. Larry Goldberg from WGBH National Center
for Accessible Media.

I would like to also recognize the working group: Claude Stout from
Consumer Action Network who is the Chair of the complaints in outreach
working group. Rich Ellis who is not here today from Verizon is the
Chair of the operations and structure working group. Gail Becker,
National Association of State Relay Administrators, who was the Chair
appropriately of the TRS issues. Jim Tobias, President of Inclusive
Technologies who is the chair of the universal service working group.

I\'d like to also thank the three subcommittee chairs: Micaela Tucker
from Nokia, who is the Chair of the disabilities subcommittee and also
the Chair of the section 255 working group. We will mail hers.

Ken McEldowney who I believe is by phone who is the Executive Director
of Consumer Action and is the Chair of the consumer protection
subcommittee, and Andrea Williams from CTIA who is the Chair of
affordability subcommittee.

I also want to at least acknowledge those who are not here with us
today. We will again mail those certificates. Vernon James from San
Carlos Apache Tribe. Joseph Gassons from Connect Bid. Steve Jacobs from
Ideal at NCR. Kathleen O\'Reilly, infamous attorney. Melissa Newman from
Quest. Maria Long from Rainbow Push. Shelly Nixon, and our wonderful
college student who we definitely value when she\'s here.

Certainly last but not least, I would like to say a special thanks to
Ms. Shirley Rooker, the Chair of this committee. You have done an
outstanding job with pulling this committee together. You hard work \--
we are in deep deep gratitude to you, in debt to you, for your
leadership, for your vision, for your support, and for all that you do,
and we really appreciate it. Thank you very much, Shirley.

With that I bid you farewell and have a great meeting, and I look
forward to hearing more about it today. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Dane.

I would at this time \-- we do need to approve the minutes of the last
meeting, the June 28th meeting. I believe you have received the minutes
already. Do we hear a motion to approve the minutes of the June 28
meeting? That is so moved, or do you have a comment. Okay. Do I hear a
second to that? Opposed? The minutes are approved. Thank you very much.

I would like to make a note. Rayna Aylward, we thank you for being here
this morning. Her mother is having some rather serious surgery today,
and she\'s going to be leaving us early. We just want you to know you
and your mother will be in our thoughts, so we hope that it goes well.

Oh okay, Scott. We have to do the March minutes also, I\'m sorry. I
would like to get a motion for approval of the March minutes. Does
someone want to move that? Okay, moved. And does someone want to second?
Okay. Approved. All in favor say aye.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Opposed?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: All right. March minutes are approved. Thank you, Scott. See
what I mean? He keeps me on the straight and narrow.

Do we have logistics? Scott, I think you need to talk about that.

MR. MARSHALL: Shirley and I are on the end of the rectangle today
you\'ll notice, and consequently the restrooms are to my right, out the
door, straight across the hall and the first left. Likewise, the
telephones are out the same door and immediately to your left. If you
have any other needs, let us know.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s not to promise that we can meet them, but at least
we\'ll hear you out.

Actually, Dane mentioned several of the things that I was going to talk
about this morning, but I will talk about them anyway because I think
that what he said reflects the fact that this has been a busy committee.

I think we got off a little bit to a slow start. We kind of found our
way, but I think in the home stretch we\'ve really done some really good
things. That\'s not to say that there isn\'t a whole lot more that we
can do because there is.

Just to highlight some of the things for you, when you referred to the
media security reliability counsel, which is one of the FCC\'s Federal
advisory committees with the same kind of status that we have, Scott and
I were invited to participate in telephone conversations with some of
the committee members, and unfortunately I was not able to do it.

Scott did it, and he put together a letter also to the Chair of that
committee which outlined the concerns that we have that have been
expressed by many of you, for example, in a recent e-mail by Nancy
Linke-Ellis, and that was the effectiveness of communications to people
with disabilities during a time of an emergency.

We are very pleased that the committee is taking a look at these issues.
They\'re listening to us and our concerns, and we continue to hope to
have a continuing dialogue. This was a direct result of the March
discussions that we had.

So we\'ve connected with his advisory committee, and it is their role to
look at these issues, and we\'re very grateful. We will keep you updated
as things progress with that committee.

At the June meeting, we heard from David Nobel who was from the
International Association of Audio Information Services, and he spoke to
us regarding the impact of digital radio on radio information services
for the blind.

Now, the FCC last month issued an order in which it specifically
recognized the problem that Mr. Nobel addressed and indicated that it
expected the radio industry and the reading services people to work out
interference problems, and we will keep you posted as this resolution
progresses. We\'ll let you know what\'s happening.

Since last June, the complaints and outreach report that was adopted by
the committee in June \-- and a copy of it, I believe, is in your
materials \-- it was submitted in a proceeding dealing with the
Commission\'s informal complaint process. Now, what that means in
English, it means our recommendations were put into the official records
for consideration of the FCC.

Also in June, the report of the disabilities committee was submitted as
part of the proceedings regarding TRS services and speech to speech, so
we are making our voice heard.

Now, Dane had mentioned the rechartering process. Let me just give you a
little bit more information on what that requires. As he said, Chairman
Powell has approved the issue, but it will not be finalized. Letters
have to be sent to 31 offices and committees. They are required to
recharter the committee. I think they\'re more than anything a
formality. We have to file and advise that the rechartering is taking
place.

The new committee will be announced in the Federal Register, and
applications for membership will be sought from a very diverse group of
organizations. We\'ll send all of you a copy of the public notice when
it\'s released, and we hope that will be done by the end of the year and
start the process of nominations for the new committee.

We expect that the meetings for next year will take place on the same
cycle, March, June and November. Now, there\'s one thing that is going
to be different and that is our name.

It\'s been interesting, the comments that I\'ve heard from people when I
would mention the C/DTAC committee. They\'d first off look at me and
say, \"what?\" Most people believe that our goal, when they look at our
title, that it is only disability issues when, in fact, that is a major
part of our committee but we really are a consumer advisory committee.

We recommended that the name be changed. I\'ve consulted with the
subcommittee Chairs to this change, and the FCC has accepted the
suggestion that we be called a consumer advisory committee.

This in no way lessens the devotion and concern that we have about
disability issues, but I think the name more truly reflects what we are
because we serve all consumers and we also serve the disability
community.

So if anyone wants to comment on this, I\'m not sure that it \-- I think
the name change has been accepted by the FCC, but I hope it doesn\'t
upset you that we\'ve changed the name. It think it more truly
represents what we are.

I think our actions will show that there\'s no less emphasis on
disability issues, so I hope that doesn\'t cause concern for you, but I
think it is more truly representative of what we do.

We encourage you to apply. As I said, you\'ll be notified, and I\'d like
to personally thank all of you because I think it\'s been an
extraordinary group. We\'ve had a lot of learning of each other and
learning of issues.

We\'ve had a lot of work to do in terms of bringing many of us up to
speed on some of the things that are of concern to the rest of us. I
think the sharing process has certainly contributed to my growth, and I
hope that you feel the same way about it.

But it could not have happened if it wasn\'t for the wonderful people
that are sitting around this table and those who are not with us today.
Having said all of that, does anyone have any comments or questions?
David.

MR. POEHLMAN: Just a comment on the name change. David Poehlman with the
American Council of the Blind. I think it\'s a good move. I am
concerned, however, that you know as people often do, you know, pick and
mull around to find out where to go, what to do, that our committee
might be missed as a source of communication, you know, by people who
might be seeking that.

So is there a provision somehow for the fact that we do include
disabilities to be registered somewhere below the title somewhere in the
\--

MR. MARSHALL: It\'s in the charter.

MR. POEHLMAN: I know it\'s in the charter, yes.

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. POEHLMAN: But that\'s the only thing that I bring out. I actually
like it because we\'re all in it together, you know, no matter what
issue we stand on. We\'re all consumers, and that\'s the important part
of it.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s a good question, David. As Scott says, it is in the
charter the communities that we serve. I don\'t know. Does anyone have
comments on ways that we make ourselves known?

I think by virtue of the fact that we are called a consumer advisory
committee, it says that we serve all consumers whatever those issues
are. Perhaps there\'s a \-- I don\'t know how there\'s a way \-- let me
just, we have some comments. Jim.

MR. TOBIAS: Just as in this incarnation of the committee, we had a \--
subcommittee. Perhaps under the new regime, there would be an explicit
disability identification so that, as David says, people who have
disability issues in telecommunications or in communications could refer
directly to that subcommittee instead of to the committee as a whole.

MS. ROOKER: I think certainly there are going to be \-- I expect a
continuation of the subcommittees. I think we\'re doing some valuable
work. We may change the format somewhat, but I\'m certain that that\'s
going to continue.

We haven\'t really talked about the formation of them, but I see no
reason why it wouldn\'t because I think those issues have to be
addressed and the best way to do it is in a subcommittee.

Certainly there could be referrals to those subcommittees who expertise
is in the specific subject. Andrea.

MS. WILLIAMS: One of the \-- in terms of the name change, I for one
supported that recommendation when Shirley asked the subcommittee
members. I think it\'s really, David, an issue of how we advertise or
make it known.

The FCC has already provided us a space on their web site, and I
anticipate that that will continue. It\'s really up to us to make sure
that that information goes out to consumers and to each of our
constituency.

We as members of this advisory committee also, I believe, have the
responsibility to make sure that our respective constituency know that
this is what the consumer advisory committee is doing. These are some of
the issues that they will be covering. This is a place to make your
voice heard on these issues.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. Claude?

MR. STOUT: If I thought of what you\'re saying, the new name will be for
the whole committee and it\'s already been decided, is that correct?

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. STOUT: It\'s already been authorized?

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. STOUT: Okay. With that information, I need to go on record saying
that I am not happy with the name change already being decided before
gathering information and opinions from this committee.

The next time that you make a name change, please check with the
committee here first before that work is done. You\'ve already gone
ahead with the name change, and no discussion has come from the group
about what they would like. That\'s my issue, my complaint, for this
morning.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Claude. We had to make a decision because in the
chartering process we had to have a name. I did consult with the
subcommittee members as to the name change, so I apologize if you feel
that we didn\'t ask you. We had talked to a number of people in
addition, but your thoughts are appreciated.

Yes, Larry.

MR. GOLDBERG: One of the questions was raised as how people find us or
find disability issues, whether it\'s by title or whatever. I think one
way that would definitely be helped is if some sort of link to the
disabilities issues were put back on the home page of the FCC.

Even though we\'re part of the consumer and government affairs bureau
and as a subcommittee of a subcommittee, a direct link would help
absolve all those problems.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s an excellent suggestion. As a matter of fact, I had
just made myself a note here to take a look at the web site to make sure
that it is encompassing all that we do so that we can reach out to all
constituencies. I think that\'s very important, so thank you.

Yes, Rayna.

MS. AYLWARD: I have a couple of comments that are sort of related to the
name change but have more to do with composition of the newly chartered
committee.

I think we spent a lot of time in between the lines talking about the
relative proportions of consumers, corporate industry groups, and I
think particularly with the name change now, I\'m not making any
particular suggestions, but I would hope that there\'s a lot of thought
put into how the various groups are represented.

The second comment, again it\'s not a real suggestion but just something
I hope will be taken into consideration, is to have both the person and
the position taken into account so that it\'s not just a slot for any
particular company or any particular group but that you really,
particularly with a smaller group which I imagine you\'ll be having, you
really want to have individuals who are very well suited to talk about
these issues.

One third thing, and I\'m sorry that Shelly Nixon is not here. I really
really encourage you to have a youth, at least several youth
representatives, because I think we\'ve all learned so much from her,
and she is the future for all of the things that we\'re working on here.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. You made some excellent points. As a matter of fact, I
just sent Shelly a note telling her how much I \-- she\'s so thoughtful
and she comes out with \-- I mean, she\'s just amazing. And that\'s an
excellent suggestion.

In terms of size, we really haven\'t decided on the size of the
committee because I think it\'s so important that all constituents be
represented, and I really do see the mix as pretty much what we have
here in terms of representation from all populations.

So it\'s something that we\'re very sensitive to and very concerned
with, and it\'s something that is certainly my first priority to see
that we have representation from all consumers and that in the broad
sense of the word. So we are very sensitive to that. And I encourage you
as soon as you get this notice to apply for the committee. So we\'ll be
doing that.

Did I see a hand somewhere? Yes, Laura.

MS. RUBY: I was just going to add to that, but I think we should each
take responsibility for making sure that we send those nominations out
to at least two or three people that we know and think of, especially
some folks that outside of the beltway.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MS. RUBY: Because I think it\'s really important for us to try and bring
in some of the consumers that are more at the state and local level who
can bring some of the issues from outside the beltway back up to us.

MS. ROOKER: Well, it\'s just like David Nobel coming here from
Pennsylvania at our last meeting \--

MS. RUBY: Right.

MS. ROOKER: \-- and bringing the issue of the deaf and radio services.
So indeed, that input is very important whether they come as a special
guest and speak to the committee or come in as committee members. It is
important, and that\'s an excellent suggestion. Do we have any other
comments?

I believe, if I remember correctly, we had to make the name change
because we were applying for the charter, so there was a time frame
there. We had very little time to get this done, and we talked about it.
So at any rate, well, thank you very much for your comments, and I think
we will move on.

Let me just see here, where are we? Have I finished my report? I think I
finished my report. You don\'t have to listen to me any more. I would
like to also underscore Dane\'s thanks to our subcommittee Chairs and
our working group Chairs, because you put a lot of time and effort into
the things that we\'ve accomplished in this committee, and you\'re part
of what makes it happen.

Okay. I think we\'re going to move. We\'re a little bit early, but
that\'s fine because we\'ve got a hot subject coming up after our
morning break. I think I\'m going to move into the section where we\'re
going to give you an update of what\'s been happening with the Consumer
and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

Starting that out is going to be Pam Gregory. Pam, welcome back. It\'s
nice to see you. She\'s with the Disability Rights Office, and if you
all remember correctly, I think the last time Pam was here I tried to
age her considerably. I never do that. This is the youthful Pam Gregory.

MS. GREGORY: Well, actually I don\'t mind it because the last time I was
up here, Shirley introduced me as being with the Commission since 1964
which made me eligible for retirement.

I\'m just going to \-- years may know that I\'ve been with the
Commission for a little over seven years. I was the first employee
brought to the Commission to work full-time on disability issues.

I\'ve done a lot of different things. I\'ve learned a lot, and I\'ve
made a decision to step down of the Chief of the Disabilities Rights
Office, and let me tell you I couldn\'t be happier. The reason is is
that many of you know that I have two year old twins that are a handful.
I don\'t work on Fridays, and I was just feeling stretched, too
stretched.

People now at the Disability Rights Office \-- I feel a lot of pride in
ownership in that office, and I would not be stepping down as a
full-time \-- you know, as a staff person, I\'m still going to be there.
Don\'t get too excited Mike.

Unless I felt very very comfortable in the new leadership \-- and Tom
Chandler, the handsome young man sitting in the front row is going to be
my new boss, and I couldn\'t be happier. And Cheryl King is going to be
the new deputy.

I want to let you know that this is a really good thing. This is going
to be okay. They\'re great people. Tom is incredibly smart, and those of
you that work on disabilities, you know when you have these
conversations, you know, does the person get it. I mean, that\'s always
the bottom-line question, and let me tell you, these people do.

I feel completely comfortable, completely confident, and I want to thank
Dane and Margaret for letting this happen. My husband wants to thank
you, and I want to thank all of you for being so great to work with. Now
I\'m going to have Tom come up.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Pam.

MR. CHANDLER: Well, good morning. To go off script at the very
beginning, I\'ll say it\'s a little scary to start out when the person
you\'re replacing seems so happy to be leaving. Somehow I don\'t know
whether there was full disclosure here or not, but maybe another task
force can look into that.

It\'s obviously great to be here and great to have a brief chance to
share with you some of my thoughts about the Disability Rights Office,
DRO, and our busy agenda. Since I\'m new to most of you or at least some
of you, first I\'d like to give you a little personal background.

I\'ve been with the Commission almost two years. I came over to join the
Office of Legal Counsel to do appellate work defending Commission orders
in the Court of Appeals. About six months ago through contacts with Pam,
I joined DRO first as a deputy then as acting chief, and I guess as of
late last night actually chief.

So anyway, before coming to the Commission, I was at the Department of
Justice, and I was there for about 12 years in the Civil Rights Division
doing appellate work. That makes me, of course, a civil rights lawyer
and makes clear that that\'s where my background is.

In the first half of my days at the Department of Justice, I did mostly
gender discrimination cases and education discrimination cases. Some
people like me and some people hate me for this, but one of the things I
spent a long time was getting women admitted to VMI in the Citadel. Some
of my conservative friends in my neighborhood in Virginia don\'t think
that was a very good idea, but others think it was.

Later in my years at the Department of Justice, I started to do a lot of
ADA work. Of course, the ADA didn\'t even exist when I first joined it,
but a few years later it was enacted in 1990. I did a lot of Title 3
work, the public commodations, and also did a lot of Title 1 and Title 2
which you know are the employment and the state and local government
provisions.

Now with DRO, as we all know, Title 4 of the ADA, is chiefly the TRS,
the telephone relay services, so with my new position here, I\'ll have
completed what I call the \"grand slam\" of ADA work having done Titles
1 through 4. I think there is a Title 5, but it\'s mostly, you know,
filler or things that aren\'t substantively divided out the way the
other sections are.

So given my background in disability law and in civil rights law, I
obviously leapt at the chance to join DRO. Fourteen years or so of doing
nothing but appellate litigation was enough. It was sort of time to come
out of the cave and actually meet some people on a daily basis instead
of just doing legal research and writing legal briefs.

It\'s important for me to emphasize as we all know that disability
rights is really the logical and latest outgrowth of the civil rights
movement that for the last half century or so, as we all know, has
justly and morally transformed our society into a much more inclusive
and better place, and it\'s been great to be a part of that.

DRO, as you know, started out as a task force, and now we view ourselves
as a driving force. We now have eight attorneys including myself and
five other staff persons who offer invaluable assistance.

As Pam mentioned, one of the new attorneys is our recently appointed new
Deputy Chief, Cheryl King. She\'s over there. She can stand up. She\'s
been terrific and really adds to, I think, the strong team that we now
have.

Cheryl\'s been with the Commission for over five years and has a lot of
experience. I think some of you have probably met her, and if you
haven\'t, I urge you to try to meet her during the break.

Of course, Pam Gregory will still be with us. That was part of the deal.
It had to be from my end, and so we will not lose her invaluable
knowledge or experience and everything that she has brought to DRO.

The short of it is that we are now geared up, I think, to be a strong
legal and policy office, and on a broad level, one of my goals is to
have us be a strong legal shop that obviously focuses on telecom issues
and more narrowly those issues as they affect persons with disabilities.

As you know, that entails a fairly broad reach. Currently we have a
large TRS item going on that\'s the outgrowth of the further notice in
the March 2000 improved TRS order as well as the further notice part of
the IP relay order that came out earlier this year.

That order is keeping a number of our attorneys quite busy at the moment
including Cheryl, and she tells me that\'s going to keep me quite busy
starting next week, I think. But that\'s a major item that is ongoing.

Obviously, there are other TRS matters that we\'re looking at. We have
before us the recertification applications from all 50 states\' TRS
programs, and those will have to be acted on by next spring.

We have the Cabtel petition by Ultratech addressing their new enhanced
VCO product. We have waiver requests for certain of the mandatory
minimum requirements for IP relay. We have pending issues concerning
cost allocation issues for IP relay and VRS.

Of course, outside of the TRS area, we are actively involved in
closed-captioning matters, hearing age compatibility issues, and issues
arriving under Section 255 which as you know requires telecommunications
products and services to be accessible to persons with disabilities to
the extent that\'s readily achievable.

Finally, I should mention that we are closely watching a case in the
D.C. Court of Appeals that was argued in early September that challenges
our video description rules largely on First Amendment grounds, and that
decision should be coming out any time although it may be another month
or so. That area then is up there now, and it\'s possibly vulnerable for
those who went to the argument and saw that.

In addition to these issues, I\'d like to mention just a couple other
goals I have and we have DRO. First I\'d like to enhance our
coordination of disability matters with other Federal agencies such as
the Department of Justice.

I\'ve been recently told by my former colleagues and friends there that
the Disability Rights Office of the Civil Rights Division, which is one
of their functional sections where they have education, voting,
employment, housing, and after 1990 disability rights, is now the
largest section of the Civil Rights Division.

I think that\'s another indication of the attention that disability
issues are now getting in the civil rights community and, indeed, on a
broad national policy level. I work closely with that office doing my
ADA cases there, and I have and intend to further renew my contacts
there. Another such agency is FEMA which raises issues concerning access
to emergency information.

Secondly, I want to make sure that we keep our eye on the goal of
functional equivalency and what that means as technology develops and
changes. In this regard, I think it\'s important to emphasize that we
recognize that our work really will never finish in DRO because as
technology changes, the rules and laws will have to also change to
insure that these improved technologies are accessible.

Finally, in closing I\'d like to emphasize two more points. First, as we
all know, the Commission is a government agency which, in turn, makes me
a government lawyer and all the people who work in DRO government
employees.

As such, our role is to establish rules generally as directed by
Congress to regulate telecom matters, in particular those telecom
matters addressing disability issues.

We are deeply committed to this goal of accessibility, but the same time
as government employees, we always have to balance competing interest
because that\'s what government does.

So I urge you to the extent some of you may occasionally feel that
whatever we finally get out the door hasn\'t gone far enough or leaves
you a little bit disappointed to keep your eyes on the broader goal and
to repeat the old civil rights refrain to \"keep your eyes on the
prize\" and know that as the wheels of government turn slowly, we\'re
doing our best to get there.

Finally, I\'ve already met many of you, and when I have I have learned a
lot. I would very much like to meet as many of you as possible so I can
continue to learn both about the area and to hear your concerns and
ideas and where we should go from here.

My door is always open. Pam feels the same way, so please do not
hesitate to contact me by e-mail or otherwise. We can set up a meeting
or whatever would be appropriate to begin or continue our dialogue on
these important issues.

Again, it\'s an honor to be part of DRO. Thank you, Dane. Thank you,
Margaret. Thank you, Pam. It\'s great and important work that benefits
us all, and I\'m thrilled to be involved, and on we go. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Tom. Do you have time for questions? Do we have
questions for Tom? Larry.

MR. GOLDBERG: Larry Goldberg. My organization is a part of a public
broadcaster, and as a public broadcaster we\'re very big supporters of
digital television as has Dane mentioned is an important part of the
chairman\'s goals as well as broadband. For consumers to really begin
accepting digital television into their homes and their lives aside from
the cost, it really has to be a service that serves everyone.

I think that one of the important aspects of what the DRO needs to do to
help the disability community adopt digital TV which we think is a great
idea is that it\'s accessible.

The rules actually require digital TV programming to be closed captioned
and very very little of it is. So that\'s one area we\'d love to help
you make sure that the programmers understand those aspects.

When I show the new digital television sets that have built-in closed
captions as I showed to Dane last month, it just knocks people out.
It\'s a fantastic look and feel.

But I couldn\'t go to any deaf consumer today and suggest that they buy
a set because so little of the programming is captioned. So I\'d love to
help you work through that.

MR. CHANDLER: Yes, I appreciate those comments, and you know, we are
actively looking at digital TV and the closed captioning rules. I can\'t
wait for the day that I can afford an HDTV and certainly we\'re aware of
those comments and we\'ll continue that dialogue.

MS. ROOKER: Bob.

MR. SEGALMAN: Around about a year ago, a significant amount of NECCA
funds were set aside for TRS for outreach. Can you tell us what\'s
become of that?

MR. CHANDLER: I can tell you that my understanding is that at one point
on the NECCA budget, I think, there was an item for some outreach that
was then removed because it wasn\'t clear or finalized whether the money
could be spent in that way.

But more importantly, that is a matter that is part of the open
proceeding we now have in TRS and that we\'re looking into and hoping to
address in our upcoming order.

So there isn\'t much I can say more than that. As you know, for these
kind of remarks I always rehearse saying I can\'t answer that question,
and I guess that\'s maybe the first time I get to do that today.

But we\'re aware of that change and the perceptions that resulted from
that. It raises some difficult legal issues, and we are looking into
that, and that hopefully will be addressed as part of the upcoming order
next year.

Anything else? No? We can keep ahead of schedule.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, so much.

MR. CHANDLER: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: You\'re welcome. The next person that is going to give us an
update is Kris Monteith who is the Associate Bureau Chief for
Intergovernmental Affairs. Kris.

MS. MONTEITH: Thank you very much. It\'s a pleasure to be here today. I
see some familiar faces from other contexts, and I look forward to
meeting others of you at the break and during the day.

Tom, you\'re a hard act to follow. You\'re very entertaining and lively,
and I\'m not sure I\'m going to be able to live up to that, but I\'ll
try.

Just to give you a little bit on my background, I do have a little bit
of background with disabilities related issues as well. I joined the
Commission in 1997 in the then Network Services Division of the Common
Carrier Bureau, and one of my responsibilities there was
telecommunications relay services. I worked with Pam Gregory, and Andy
Firth, and some others in NSD on those types of issues.

Then I moved to the Wireless Bureau, and I headed up the policy division
of the Wireless Bureau. There I also had responsibility for disabilities
related issues but from the wireless perspective and worked on wireless
TTY types of issues and hearing aid compatibility issues.

So now I moved to the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and I
get to interact with all of you folks. So I feel in some ways that I\'m
coming home or full circle, and that\'s a very nice place to be.

I just want to describe a little bit for you what we\'re doing in
intergovernmental affairs and what our vision is. As you may know, the
intergovernmental affairs function was moved from the Commission\'s
Office of Legislative Affairs in March of this year.

That was a part of the overall restructuring of the agency to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency overall. Dane brought me
over from the Wireless Bureau to head up that intergovernmental affairs
effort.

Division of Intergovernmental Affairs as we see it is to create a
comprehensive affective program of outreach to state, local and tribal
governments and other Federal regulatory agencies as well as
organizations representing those constituencies.

Our purpose there is really three fold. We want to promote an excellent
understanding of FCC programs, policies, rules and decisions. We want to
establish a beneficial ongoing two-way exchange of information and
communications on telecommunications issues of common interest, and we
want to establish cooperation and coordination in areas of overlapping
jurisdiction.

I\'d like to describe for you in a little bit of detail but hopefully
somewhat briefly the broad areas of responsibility that we see
encompassed under intergovernmental affairs and those are the local and
state government advisory committee, the Indian telecommunications
initiatives, the Federal state joint conference on advanced
telecommunications services, intergovernmental affairs outreach
generally, and sort of ad hoc special programs that come our way or
special projects that come our way that involves state, local and tribal
governments.

The local and state government advisory committee, as you may know, was
formed in 1997 to advise the Commission on issues of concern to state,
local and tribal governments. The LSGC has taken an active role in
bringing representatives of state and local governments together with
representatives of the Commission to produce creative solutions to legal
and regulatory issues that are confronting those state, local, tribal
governments and the FCC.

The LSGC meets six times a year here at the Commission and produces
recommendations and advisory recommendations for the Commission\'s
consideration. The Commission\'s Indian telecom initiatives were
originated in 2000 and are now housed in CGB.

CGB has undertaken a really comprehensive program aimed at laying a
solid foundation of understanding, cooperation and trust among the FCC,
native American tribes, tribal organizations, Alaskan native
communities, and the telecommunications industry.

Our goal is to design a clear and comprehensive blueprint for increasing
access to critical telecommunication services and improving the quality
of life in Indian country.

We aim to accomplish this goal by a number of means specifically,
through interactive regional workshops, attendance and participation by
Commission senior staff at conferences that are sponsored by tribal
organizations, meeting with individual tribes and their representatives
to address the unique tribal concerns of those individuals in charge,
and the dissemination of educational materials to native American tribes
and organizations.

Through these efforts which we envision will be developed and
implemented in a collaborative way with our native American partners, we
believe measurable progress can be made towards the goal of achieving
access to affordable telecommunications services for all Americans.

Turning to the Federal State Joint Conference on Advanced Services, as
you may know, that was formed in 1999 to fulfill the promise of 706 of
the Telecommunications Act. The Joint Conference shares ideas and
gathers real-life stories from across the country that are aimed at
assisting the FCC in its reports to Congress on the deployment of
advanced telecommunications services.

The Joint Conference has held field hearings across the country to learn
about the deployment of advanced telecommunications services and most
recently has undertaken a study of broad deployment and take rates in
the U.S. That study will be presented to the National Association of
Regulatory Commissioners at its upcoming meeting in Chicago next week.

Concerning intergovernmental affairs outreach generally, this is a
fundamental aspect of what we in the consumer and governmental affairs
ITA area are trying to do, obviously.

Now we\'re just trying to establish and maintain relationships with
local state and tribal governments as I mentioned through attendance at
their conference, by inviting those folks to come in and meet with us,
through really a regular ongoing interactive dialogue with our state,
local and tribal counterparts. We will encourage these organizations to
interface with us and to ask for our assistance as we all move forward
with our telecom plans and our policies.

Just to describe a couple of other initiatives that we\'ve undertaken
recently, Dane mentioned the National Summit on Emerging Technologies
that took place in Phoenix in September of this year and our
participation in that national summit as part of our Indian telecom
initiatives.

The FCC planned a day-long agenda on telecommunications issues, and we
had a lot of help from tribal representatives including some that serve
on this committee, Belinda Nelson and Vernon James, and we really really
appreciate all of their hard work that went into making that day what I
think was a huge success.

We had leading experts from across the country addressing
telecommunications issues really in a nuts and bolts type of fashion.
The aim was to inform and educate and to have really an interactive
dialogue, and I think that we were hugely successful in that effort.

The IGA function was also very instrumental in our recent public forum
on rights-of-way issues. Rights-of-way issues are of considerable
interest to local officials and state officials and have gotten a lot of
play recently.

The FCC undertook a public forum aimed at hearing from local authorities
and state regulators in the industry on how we might grapple with and
hopefully reach solutions to some of those difficult and complex issues.

The intergovernmental affairs function of CGB was very instrumental in
putting together that program and helping to shape the agenda and
identify speakers, and then of course on the day of the program
providing logistical support. We have other initiatives of a similar
nature underway.

I hope I haven\'t bored you all too too much, but in sum, what we\'re
trying to do with our intergovernmental affairs effort is really
establish a concerted very specific plan by which we can do outreach to
our state and local counterparts and form what we think will be very
beneficial, long-term, ongoing relationships and ultimately help improve
and provide the best telecommunications services we can to all
Americans.

So with that, thank you very much. I appreciate your time and your
attention.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have any questions for Kris? Okay, well, thank you
very much Kris. It was good to hear from you.

Our next speaker is Michelle Walters who is Chief of the Policy
Division. Michelle.

MS. WALTERS: Thank you. Hi. I will try to make this as short as
possible. I am so excited about what we\'re doing in the policy division
that I might have a tendency to give you more detail than you want. So
please signal me if I\'m going down that road.

Just to briefly introduce myself and my background so you know where
I\'m coming from, I worked for a couple of years in the D.C. area at a
law firm on telecommunications law matters.

I got to dip my toes into a wide range of issues from broadcast, cable,
satellite, wireless, really everything except for telephones which, of
course, is now a major focus of my work.

I was lucky enough to be hired in 1996 to help implement the Telecom Act
here at the FCC, and I spent over three years in the General Counsel\'s
office doing litigation.

Compared to Tom, I really only had a brief flirtation with appellate
litigation, but I actually find my experience very relevant to our work
in the policy division. With every order and rule provision, I encourage
all of the attorneys to think of themselves gripping the podium in front
of demanding judges trying to explain why what the FCC did was right. I
think that is something that is very important to all the work that the
Commission does. Consumers are best served by rules which stand up in
Court.

I was working for about almost two years in the Common Carrier Bureau on
a number of consumer oriented rule-rule-making proceedings with a very
small staff sort of competing for resources.

When Margaret Egler and Dane Snowden approached me about the possible
plan to move that work over to CGB, it became clear to me that that was
going to be a great move not only for me but for everyone who was
interested in the consumer protection rule makings that the Commission
has.

So I came over on a detail basis in the fall of 2001. The reorganization
took effect in March. So we had a ramping up period, and that was very
helpful. By the time the reorg took effect in March, we were really
going ahead 100 percent.

I\'d like to describe the policy division to you just briefly. We\'re a
small shop. We have six attorneys plus me, a total of about 15 people
and five more on detail. Despite the small size of our group at this
point, we have a very broad area of responsibility. We do rule making,
we do enforcement, and we do analysis. There aren\'t that many shops in
the agency that cover that range of issues.

So I\'d like to give you some specifics on each area of our
responsibility. First, rule making. I actually think of this in three
different pieces. The most significant piece would be our own home grown
rule makings. Those are proceedings that we have direct responsibility
for.

These include the Commission\'s telemarketing and unsolicited facts
rules, the TCPA rules. The Commission did not have an open ruling
making. It had rules on the books and they were enforced, but it didn\'t
have an open rule making until this fall when our policy division
presented an item which was adopted, a notice of proposed rule making,
to seek public comment on whether we should revise or expand those
rules.

Two attorneys from my division, Richard Smith and Erica McMahon who are
sitting over there, will be talking to you later this morning in more
detail about what the Commission has proposed and inviting comment from
obviously C/DTAC as a group but also any individuals or groups who are
represented here. We\'re very excited about that rule making.

The slamming proceeding is probably what people think of the most when
they think of our division. We have open rule making on a number of
issues, issues that we\'ve received comment on, issues that we have
received petitions for reconsideration on. It\'s a very active area for
us, and I\'ll talk about that more when I get to the enforcement piece.

A number of other areas that the Commission has rules in place that we
have responsibility for include the truth in billing rules, the operator
service rules. That has to do when you\'re at a pay phone and you want
to try to make a collect call.

That\'s just a handful. We do have some others, but I will note that the
set of rule makings that we\'re responsible for is not a closed set, and
in fact petitions for rule making that the Commission receives that have
a strong consumer component may well end up in our shop.

We have a few that have been filed and a few more on the way, and so if
you think something\'s going to be happening at the Commission that has
a strong consumer dimension, chances are good that we may be doing it.

One secret to our success so far, I believe, is our extensive
consultation with FCC\'s own enforcement bureau. I think it\'s really
key when we have these rules on the books that we\'re very much in sync
in our interpretations with the enforcement bureau.

So when folks are calling my attorneys to get more of a sense of, you
know, what does the Commission mean or how does this play out in a
particular situation, we do try to coordinate with enforcement so that
there\'s some certainty out there and people have a feeling that if they
follow these rules they\'ve done the right thing.

The second piece of our rule making responsibility is coordination with
items that have been originated in other bureaus. We think that many of
the things the Commission does these days really really has a consumer
dimension that we feel we can contribute to, all kinds of wireline and
wireless telephone issues.

Really the consumer policy aspect of competition is something we feel
strongly about, so a lot of the orders that have come out over the last
\-- since March or before have had input from CGB policy, and we think
that\'s constructive. Also on the media side, digital television issues,
media ownership issues, we are very interested so we are playing a role.

Just as a quick side note, we do have strong relationships with a couple
of government entities that engage in similar activities. NARUC, the
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions, are there, the
state commissions all around the country, we work with them closely on a
number of issues, and we\'re also in touch with the National Association
of Attorneys General along with enforcement.

Getting to our own enforcement responsibilities, we do not poach what
the Enforcement Bureau does. We have one specific enforcement mission
and that is resolution of individual complaints under our slamming
liability rules.

The Commission can and still does take major enforcement action when
they go to a company and say I\'m sorry but you have a pattern or
practice of, you know, 50 slamming violations and imposes a large fine
or perhaps comes to a settlement.

But under the slamming liability rules which are special, consumers can
actually get individual relief on their complaints. That is different
from most of our informal complaint process which does not have that
type of provision.

We have an arrangement with many states where they opt in and administer
the complaints from their own citizens which is great because there are
really a lot of slamming complaints out there and I don\'t think our
shop could possibly keep up with the flow if we had them coming from all
50 states. It\'s still a challenge even with the number that we have.

I\'m proud to say that in the month of October, if my memory serves me,
we released 147 slamming orders, many of which resolved more than one
slamming complaint, so we have a small very hard working team trying to
make sure that they are processed quickly and folks don\'t have to wait.

Thanks for your patience. My last point is the third prong of our
responsibility, our analysis function. We have an analysis branch, and
the chief of that branch is here, Warren O\'Hearn. Hi Warren.

Warren and his team take the data on inquiries and complaints that is
collected by another part of our bureau, CICD, I think it\'s Consumer
Inquiries and Complaints Division. They analyze this data, they
interpret it, and they present it in internal documents and external
documents.

As you might imagine, data is extremely important to the FCC\'s decision
making processes. It\'s also important to the public. It\'s important to
companies. It\'s important to everyone who is interested in this
industry and how it is regulated and how it affects people.

So we are very excited to have that group in our policy division
particularly, I think, for sort of the internal analyses that we can
request and draw on and then share as appropriate with other parts o the
Commission or with the eight floor. That\'s what we call the
Commissioners.

I think that is actually everything that I wanted to tell you about us,
but I certainly am happy to take your questions if there\'s something I
haven\'t covered.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have questions for Michelle? Well, Michelle, you
obviously answered all their questions. Thank you so much.

We appreciate your taking the time, all three of you, to be with us this
morning, and you to Pam. We\'re going to miss you. You\'ll be with us, I
hope.

MS. GREGORY: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Good. You can come and visit. We\'ll allow it.

We are going to take a break now. Then when we come back, I\'d like you
back here by at least quarter of 11 because we have a very informational
topic coming up \-- very informational \-- a very informational
discussion but also I think it\'s going to be a very interesting topic
for us to address. And we really would like to come out of this meeting
today with some recommendations for the Commission. So let\'s be back
here no later in your chairs by quarter to 11.

(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

MS. ROOKER: \-- We were getting so many dead air time calls especially
when we\'d go away on vacation and come back and we\'d have all these
hang-ups on our answering machine. It was maddening to have to go
through them. I don\'t have an answering machine that\'s voice
activated. It\'s old. What can I say.

But nevertheless, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 is
certainly an interesting piece of legislation, and also in fact, to the
many many changes that have taken place in the last decade which has
made the rules \-- maybe a time to take a look at them, and that\'s what
the FCC is doing.

They have come out with some proposed changes in the rules, and this
morning we\'re going to hear from the two people who have written these
proposals. Then we\'re going to have a discussion and hopefully come up
with some recommendations for the FCC as to what we think. At any rate,
I\'m sure that none of us will be hesitant to express what we think.

But to proceed, I\'d like to introduce to you \-- we have two people
here. They\'re both attorneys with the Consumer and Governmental Affairs
Bureau, Erica McMahon and Richard Smith who are the authors. Erica is
going to speak with us first. Erica, welcome.

MS. McMAHON: Good morning. Thank you very much. Again, my name is Erica
McMahon. I work in CGB\'s policy division, and I have been involved in
the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, NPRM.

As many of you may know, the Commission released an NPRM on September
eighteenth. In that NPRM, we are seeking comment very broadly on whether
our existing rules on telemarketing need to be updated or whether
additional rules need to be adopted in light of new ways that
telemarketing is conducted today and in light of new and more widely
used technologies for that purpose.

Just to give you a little bit of background, the TCPA was enacted by
Congress in 1991 in an effort to address what was seen then as certain
practices that were intrusive, often invasion of privacy, and in some
cases a threat to public safety.

In 1992, the Commission adopted rules as directed by Congress to
implement the TCPA, and these rules include rules on use of auto
dialers, the use of artificial or pre-recorded messages, unsolicited
facts ads, and ways that individuals might avoid unwanted sales calls,
in this case a company specific do not call list.

It has been ten years since the Commission has adopted a broad set of
rules to address unrestricted advertising over the telephone and fax
machine, so the Commission thought now is the time to look at those
rules again and see whether we need to update them or adopt some
additional rules.

So what I\'m going to do is tell you a little bit about the TCPA and
then a little bit about what our NPRM does.

The TCPA first of all prohibits all auto dial calls or pre-recorded
messages to certain numbers. Those would include emergency numbers,
numbers for guest or patient rooms in hospitals, health care facilities,
elderly homes, or similar establishments, any numbers assigned to a
paging service, cellular telephone service or other radio common carrier
services, and finally any service for which the called party is charged
for the call.

The TCPA also addresses line seizure by auto dialers by requiring any
pre-recorded messages that are sent by auto dialers to release the
called party\'s line within five seconds of the time that the called
party hangs up.

What our NPRM does in this area is seeks comment on auto dialers in
general, the definition of an auto dialer, and whether we need to
clarify that that definition covers the technologies that are used by
the telemarketing industry today to market business services. The NPRM
also seeks comment on the use of predictive dialers and on answering
machine detection.

The TCPA also makes it unlawful to send artificial or pre-recorded vice
messages to residential telephone lines without the prior consent of the
called party or in the absence of an emergency.

Now, there are certain exceptions to this rule. For non-commercial
calls, commercial calls that do not include an unsolicited
advertisement, calls to persons with whom the entity has an established
business relationship, and finally calls made by tax-exempt non-profit
organizations.

In addition to addressing the actual delivery of the pre-recorded
message, the TCPA requires that all messages must identify at the
beginning of the message the business or entity making the call and
during or after the message the telephone number or address of that
entity.

Our NPRM seeks comment in this area on the identification rules, in
particular, whether they apply to the situation when a predictive dialer
dials a number but then abandons the call before the telemarketer
identifies him or herself.

The NPRM also identifies certain types of messages like offers for free
goods or services and messages sent by radio stations or television
broadcasters. We also seek comment on the established business
relationship and whether we need to clarify what exactly constitutes an
established business relationship.

Finally, we seek comment on the interplay between the established
business relationship and a customer\'s request not to receive calls so
that if an entity can under the law send a pre-recorded message to an
individual because they have an established business relationship with
that individual, what happens when the consumer then requests that they
not be called again? Does that entity then have to honor that do not
call request?

The TCPA also makes it unlawful to send unsolicited faxes without the
prior express permission of the recipient. In the NPRM we seek comment
on what constitutes express permission. In the NPRM we also seek comment
on whether the Commission should continue to treat an established
business relationship as providing the requisite permission to send an
unsolicited fax add. And lastly we ask about whether we need to address
the activities of fax broadcasters and, if so, what ways?

The TCPA also prohibits the sending of auto dial calls or pre-recorded
messages to a number for which the called party is charged for the call.
I just mentioned that a minute ago.

What the NPRM gets into a little bit more detail about is whether we
need to address specifically telemarketing calls to wireless customers.
For purposes of our rules on telephone solicitations, we ask whether
wireless subscribers should be considered or are considered residential
telephone subscribers, and we ask about whether calls to wireless
numbers should fall within the prohibitions on auto-dialers and
pre-recorded messages.

Lastly and perhaps more importantly for your purposes here, the TCPA
required the Commission to adopt rules to give consumers options for
avoiding unwanted sales calls.

What the commission did in 1992 is to adopt what are called \"company
specific do not call lists.\" Under the rules, all companies are
required to maintain do not call lists. They\'re required to have a
written policy on a do not call list and to make that available upon
demand, and they must place a consumer on a do not call list if that
consumer requests that that be done. Finally, the company must honor the
do not call request for ten years.

In our NPRM, we seek comment very broadly on how effective the company
specific lists have been at preventing unwanted sales calls and whether
this approach has been unreasonably burdensome for consumers, for
instance, whether requests are honored, whether telemarketers hang up
before consumers are permitted to assert their do not call requests or
do not call rights, and we also ask specifically whether consumers with
certain disabilities, hearing or speech disabilities, often may not be
able to convey their request not to be called by telemarketers.

I do know that some of you in this room have already passed along some
of your concerns and suggestions to us over the years, but we hope that
you will take advantage of this proceeding by commenting even further on
some of these issues.

We ask specifically in our NPRM what additional measures should be taken
to insure that consumers with disabilities have the opportunity as other
consumers to request placement on do not call lists.

The NPRM also seeks comment on whether companies should be required to
provide some means for consumers to confirm their do not call request,
and finally we seek comment on whether telemarketers should be required
to transmit caller I.D. information or should be prohibited from
blocking such information.

I\'ve talked just a little bit about the company specific lists. Now
I\'m going to turn it over to Richard. He\'s going to talk a little bit
about our discussion of a possible national do not call list.

After he speaks, we will then open it up for questions.

MR. SMITH: Good morning. My name is Richard Smith, and I\'m an attorney
in the policy division of CGB.

Erica has addressed the Commission\'s current rules on telemarketing and
the efforts to review those rules in our recent notice. I have just a
few brief remarks about the concept of a national do not call list which
is also discussed in the notice.

The national do not call list is basically a very simple idea. It would
be a centralized database maintained by the Federal government or
someone appointed by the Federal government containing at the minimum
the telephone numbers of those residential consumers that do not wish to
be contacted by telemarketers. The TCPA specifically authorizes the
Commission to consider adopting the national do not call list.

In 1992 when the Commission first implemented its rules on
telemarketing, the Commission considered the national do not call list
proposal. At that time, the Commission concluded that it would costly
and difficult to maintain such a database which potentially can have
millions of telephone numbers. The Commission, therefore, opted for the
company specific approach which Erica has discussed.

Well, since that time we have continued to receive complaints and
inquiries regarding telemarketing. It seems as though telemarketing has
become more and more prevalent. As was mentioned, the use of predictive
dialers seems to make it difficult and in some cases impossible for
consumers to request that they be placed on the do not call list. This
calls into question the effectiveness of some of our current rules, and
therefore we have decided to revisit the idea of a national do not call
list.

Also since 1992, there have been a couple of noteworthy events that may
influence what we ultimately decide to do. For example, approximately
1/2 of all the states now have their own do not call lists and
telemarketing rules. Some of these very closely parallel the Federal
rules. Others have very numerous exceptions. I can think of at least one
state that has as many as 20 exceptions to its do not call list.

Many of you are probably also aware that the Federal Trade Commission
has recently issued a proposal to adopt a national do not call list.
That proceeding is currently pending, and we understand that there were
many many comments filed.

One of the questions that we often receive is why is the FCC now
considering the do not call list in light of the FTC\'s actions. There
are a couple of very good reasons for that.

We have an independent statutory authority and responsibility under the
TCPA to regulate certain telemarketing practices. Although the FTC is
taking action, we certainly don\'t know where they will come out on
that.

In addition, the FTC lacks jurisdiction over a number of entities that
engage in telemarketing. For example, the FTC lacks jurisdiction over
common carriers, banks, insurance companies, and many others.
Presumably, even if the FTC adopts a do not call list, these entities
will be allowed to continue to call those consumers who are on those
lists.

Many of you may also be aware of the Direct Marketing Association\'s
list of numbers of consumers that do not wish to be called. That\'s also
very useful information for consumers. They can sign up for that list on
the internet by contacting the Direct Marketing Association.

The notice basically divides or in its discussion of the national do not
call list into two broad categories. The first is whether or not to
adopt the list. The second is if so, how will this work in conjunction
with the many state lists and the FTC\'s possible list.

So those are all the issues that we have on the table. We certainly
encourage consumers to participate in this industry as you probably are
well aware. It needs no encouragement to participate. We meet with them
quite regularly.

Just as a reminder, the comments are due on November 22. The reply
comments are due on December 9. The notice is available on our internet
site, and I think I also saw it in the package that was distributed here
today.

So thank you for your attention. If you have any questions, Erica,
Michelle, and I will certainly be glad to take those.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. I think there\'s going to be a lot of questions.
Before we get to the people around the table, I would like to check in
with our folks on the phone.

Ken, are you on the phone now?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, I am.

MS. ROOKER: Well, hello. We\'re welcoming Ken McEldowney from Consumer
Action. And David are you still there?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: I am.

MS. ROOKER: Good. Let me start with the two of you if either of you have
questions or comments for our panelists, and I\'ll check back with you
in a minute and a little bit later also.

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Okay.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Shirley, you\'re so good. Yes, I would just like to make
a comment. I think that several years ago when the original
telemarketing rule was being proposed to be argued very strongly for the
need for a national do not call list, one, to protect consumers, but we
also thought it would be advantageous to industry itself.

I think what\'s happened in the intervening years have basically created
a situation in which out of complete frustration states have set up
their own do not call list, and I think that the anger that consumers
have had toward telemarketing calls is coming close to destroying that
as an effective means of commerce in reaching consumers.

I would strongly urge the adoption of the national do not call list so
the consumers who do not wish to be contacted by telemarketer callers
would have an easier way of opting out, and then basically the people
who either don\'t care or like getting telemarketing calls would then be
in my mind a much better audience for such calls from industry. So I
think it\'s time for both the FCC and the FTC to step up to the plate
and do a national do not call list.

I guess one last comment, one of the real problems I think with the
other national list that\'s out there which Direct Marketing Association
is that in essence in some ways it really is voluntary. It excludes
folks who are not members of DMA, and so I think that it\'s been helpful
for some consumers, but I think its shortcomings demonstrate the need
for a national do not call list that\'s administered by the Federal
government. Thanks Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you Ken. I think we\'re probably going to have quite a
bit of discussion on this. David, do you have any initial comments?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: No, I\'m just listening and taking good notes for
Milton.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. You\'ve heard Ken\'s comments, and let\'s go around
the table with the other people who I just met.

MR. KALTENBACH: Matt Kaltenbach, Sony Ericsson. I have two questions.
Number one, do you have contact information for where to complain when a
telemarketer does not stop after he\'s been requested to stop phoning or
faxing a residential location? And number two, are you considering an
e-mail do not spam list as a national on-line service?

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: I like that. I used to think spam is what came in a tin can.

All right. We had some other hands on this side of the table. Who was
here?

MS. McMAHON: Actually, can I answer him?

MS. ROOKER: Oh, okay. Go ahead. Absolutely.

MS. McMAHON: With regard to your first question, one good thing to do if
a consumer feels that their right has been violated by getting a repeat
call when they\'ve asked to be taken off the list or getting an
unsolicited fax is file a complaint with the Commission.

CGB\'s web site has a pretty easy format. If you just go to www.fcc.gov
and \-- for consumers? Is that how it\'s labeled? And it\'s also how to
file a complaint. There are a couple of different ways that will get you
to the place where you can do it. If you\'re filing a complaint about an
unsolicited fax, you might want to \-- you want to attach the fax. You
know, that actual evidence is important.

I will also note something that I don\'t think we mentioned but
something that everybody should be aware of which is the TCPA is an
unusual statute. In addition to giving the FCC the authority to pass
regulations and take enforcement action, it also gave individuals a
private right of action.

It may be affected by what your state has done. You know, some states I
think seem to prohibit consumers from exercising that right, but in most
states, you can actually take the violator to small claims court. And
there are people who are actually finding that to their financial
benefit because they can prove it and they go to court. So it\'s a \$500
per violation.

MR. McELDOWNEY: The problem I have is if the fax numbers are removed
somehow automatically from the system.

MS. McMAHON: Yes.

MR. McELDOWNEY: And even when you submit yourself to the number they
provide, you just don\'t get removed.

MS. McMAHON: Right, no. Well, it can be challenging, and I\'m just
saying that in addition to filing, I would actually recommend that
people do both myself. You know, you file a complaint with the FCC so
the FCC is aware of the scope of the problem, and the, you know, if you
can go to court and prove that your rights have been trampled on, you
should do it. So quite a lot of people do do that.

About your other question, e-mail spam, I believe it\'s safe to say the
Commission has never been given the express authority to regulate the
internet, so \--

MR. McELDOWNEY: At my last log on, I had 1080 spams.

MS. McMAHON: Yes. I think that\'s something that at this point, you
know, the Commission has a role to play with certain aspects of the
internet, the telephone lines that the internet service goes over, but
the TCPA has not been interpreted thus far to apply to e-mail, so I
think that\'s something that\'s really outside the scope of this
rule-making. It\'s not addressed in it.

That being said, you know, you can certainly \-- I would say go to your
members of Congress and tell them how you feel about it. You know, I
think there\'s a lot of interest afoot. There may actually be something
on the hill already, you know, maybe more than one. But it\'s just not
something that Congress has ever said FCC you have a role to play, do
this.

The Federal Trade Commission has broader authority over internet matters
than we do, but to my understanding, it\'s been more focused on fraud,
fraudulent internet, and you know, oh, our spam is not fraud, it\'s just
intrusive and excessive.

MS. ROOKER: Before you move on to another question, I\'d like to \--
being the Chair, I\'m going to take advantage of that position and the
microphone.

When a consumer is given the right to tell a company not to call them, I
believe that that right is preemptive by predictive dialers because when
you answer the phone and there\'s dead air, you don\'t have the ability
to tell that company not to call you. They\'ve already called you.
They\'ve already caused you to get out of the shower and pick up the
phone. So they\'re going to call you again.

Isn\'t that in violation of the TCPA in that they\'ve called you,
you\'ve not been able to tell them not to call you again?

MS. McMAHON: I think that \-- I can\'t tell you that it is because the
Commission hasn\'t addressed that question. But your question has been
keyed up expressly in the item, I believe, very explicitly to give the
Commission an opportunity to say how it feels about that.

I mean, predictive dialing just wasn\'t in use either at all or
extensively when those rules were put in place, and the Commission has
not given an interpretation to say how it fits into the scheme. But I
feel pretty certain that it will when it decides this order.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, so it would be appropriate then for us as a committee,
if we choose to, to make a recommendation on that?

MS. McMAHON: That isn\'t \-- yes, it\'s something that the Commission
hasn\'t expressly addressed, and if you want to make a recommendation,
you should do it.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. David, I think you had a question.

MR. POEHLMAN: Hello, this is David Poehlman with the American Counsel of
the Blind. I have two questions, and I\'m not really sure \-- or
discussion points, and I\'m not really sure which one to bring up first,
but I\'ll bring up the funny one first.

I\'m developing a list of people who want to be on my do call list.
Anybody want to volunteer, just raise your hand. There you go. That
brings up a point, I\'m aware of we\'re starting to see more and more
really nice little things that say so if you want information from us,
better check in this box. Now, usually it\'s checked. So I uncheck it
right? But, if you uncheck it, you know, there\'s a fair chance that you
won\'t get anything from them that you didn\'t ask for.

So my question is, and I\'ve asked this in different circles in
different ways and I get the same answer all the time so maybe I\'ll get
a different answer here, but my question is why don\'t they have a do
call list and anybody that\'s not on it doesn\'t get a call?

Then my other avenue of discussion is how do you establish yourself on a
do not call list? And what I\'m asking here is how much information do I
have to provide in order to have the privilege of not being bothered by
these telephone calls?

The only reason I ask that is because in light of some relatively recent
events, it is a concern to me that there are huge lists of data, you
know, people\'s whereabouts and personal information, and so forth, that
if they fell into the hands of the wrong people or something that, you
know, could make it very difficult or could make it very easy for some
things, some massively disruptive things, to happen. So those are my two
things.

MR. SMITH: Just in terms of what I would call the do call list,
certainly that\'s an idea that we would be open to, and we would invite
you to file comments on. Obviously the industry would not like that
idea. We certainly are doing what we can, and the notice is written
broadly, so if anyone has ideas like that, we are certainly open to
them.

In terms of what type of information would be required to place you on
the do not call lists, we are aware of the privacy concerns, but until
we do decide to adopt a national do not call list, I don\'t think we
would have any real ideas or suggestions at this point as to what types
of information would need to be provided.

MS. WALTERS: Can I make a couple of additions? It\'s Michelle again.
Just to elaborate on a couple of things that Richard said, the idea of a
do call list is certainly something that if you have thoughts, you know,
we welcome putting it into the record.

I will just note that the TCPA itself, the statutory language, I don\'t
remember what you call that part of it. It\'s kind of like the preamble.
It sort of sets out principles, and one of the principles that it talks
about is striking an appropriate balance between the interest in
consumers, protecting their privacy, and legitimate telemarketing \--
the legitimate interest of businesses in telemarketing.

So, you know, you would have to make not only a policy argument but I
think a legal argument about how the Commission could go all the way in
that direction. But I\'m not saying, you know \-- this town is full of
people who make very good legal arguments, so I encourage you to do it.

But I wanted to note that I think it would be very important for that
argument to look at the statutory language in addition to take a policy
position.

I just wanted to point out one other thing about privacy. I mean, I
believe the way the company specific do not call lists are set up is
that if you say \-- you know, they have called you and they have said
Mr. Poehlman, you know, I want to sell you something, and you say please
remove me from your calling list, never call me again, they\'re supposed
to put you on the list. I mean, I don\'t think that there is any
additional information. I don\'t think the rules contemplate that they
would extract additional information from you at that point.

How do they log you in? I don\'t know that, but I mean, I think that,
you know, the Commission would certainly frown on them \-- I think it
would probably be a violation if they said, well, first you have to tell
me 10,000 things about you.

I will note actually when the Commission rejected the national do not
call list initially ten years ago, it did talk about some privacy
concerns, about uses to which that massive information might be put, and
obviously there are privacy concerns all over this, and none of it is
insurmountable. But I think, you know, all proposals are going to be
examined in a number of lights and one of them is the privacy
implications.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Thank you. Dirk, I think you were next. And then Jim,
did you have a question? Okay, and then Bob. Okay.

MR. HARGRAVES: I\'m Dirk Hargraves, counsel to TRAC, and we want to just
come out and say that we\'re supporting and everything we can help
consumers not to get spammed by my e-mails and what have you or faxes,
but I also wanted to mention and this is probably not the appropriate
forum, but the issue was raised that TRAC, in conjunction with NCL and
Consumer Action filed a petition at the FTC to ban spam, and we
encourage all of you here to talk to your constituents to join us.

You can go to our web site that we\'ve put up called banthespam.com or
contact me after this meeting and discuss ways in which we\'re trying to
heighten the profile on this issue.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Dirk. Jim?

MR. TOBIAS: Hi. This is Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies. I have two
questions and maybe you can answer the first one first. It\'s the level
of aggregation with respect to the concept of an existing business
relationship. So I don\'t know what the current status is.

Is it only that company, only that incorporated entity, that you have
the relationship with or is it possible for callers to aggregate across
entities? My concern would be, let\'s say, I get put on a do not call
list and then in the act of shopping at my neighborhood supermarket I am
somehow re-establishing an existing business relationship and so someone
somewhere gets the right to call me again. So what\'s the current status
of aggregation on a calling list?

MS. McMAHON: I\'ll try to answer that. Let me jump back and sort of
reiterate something I said earlier, and that is there is an exemption in
our rules for entities to call or send pre-recorded messages to
individuals with whom they have an established business relationship.

Now, both in the statute and in our rules there is a specific definition
of established business relationship, and we are actually seeking
comment on that definition and whether we need clarify it.

In addition, to get to answer your question, there is also a provision
in our rules about affiliated persons or entities, and it really comes
down to whether the consumer \"reasonably would expect\" them to be
included given the identification of the caller and the product being
advertised.

So therefore, if you had a relationship with AT&T and they were calling
you and one of their subsidiaries is a subsidiary that the consumer
reasonably would expect them to be a subsidiary and you would, you know,
by virtue of your relationship with AT&T would also expect that that
other company would be able to call you in the absence of a do not call
request. That is the current state of the rule now.

But I would certainly encourage any of you all, if any of the consumers,
your constituents, have had concerns with that to file comments on that
particular issue because I think we\'ve asked questions on this NPRM
broadly enough that we could, in fact, address some of those concerns.

MR. TOBIAS: Okay. Thank you. And just one more.

I\'m going to kind of turn it around a little bit because I do
understand and as Dane Snowden mentioned, you know, I think he said
\$600 Billion a year changes hands in telemarketing, so that there are
millions of people out there who want to receive these calls. And
actually in surveys they\'ll say that this is their favorite way of
being sold to. They prefer it. And that\'s fine. Different calls for
different folks I guess.

My question really is about the accessibility of telemarketing, and I
think there were many issues, and we already heard that some of them
have been raised. But let me put one item out and that is the situation
where someone who is deaf or hard of hearing answers the call in a mixed
household, and the marketing is assumedly happening in speech and in
English, and the person who receives the call has to go and get the
other person in the household to answer the call. And I think it\'s the
same situation if it\'s a non-English speaker getting an English speaker
in the household.

Now, I understand that there is a maximum amount of time for the
telemarketer to clear the line once the called party has hung up. Is
there a minimum amount of time that the telemarketer must remain on the
line when the called party has asked them to hold, and is that something
that would be reasonable to include in a comment?

MS. McMAHON: To answer your question, yes, it would certainly be
reasonable to include in a comment, but I don\'t think the TCPR rules
addresses what you\'re describing.

MR. TOBIAS: But would the law. I mean, could you make a ruling?

MS. WALTERS: I mean, I would say I don\'t think it\'s unreasonable. I
think you should file comments and, you know, it\'s not something that
the statute specifically addresses, and so then it would be a question
of first, you know, was there support for taking this approach and then
was it something that fit into the rules.

I mean, I could see that it might be, but there\'s not something at this
time that addresses that, but certainly \-- I guess the other question
is just when you do an NPRM and notice, you have to make sure that
notice is broad enough to take actions.

I think this notice is fairly broad. I think we ask some broad questions
about how our rules could be improved to address issues that have come
up since the Commission last adopted the rules. So I encourage you to
put this type of thing into comment because the Commission would
consider it.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, I think Bob, you were next.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: These questions are more of from my own personal nature
rather than TIA, but I think they\'ll be appropriate.

First, the question is that this order is directed at consumers, but big
business as well as small business feels the affect of what\'s going on,
especially with the noticeable increases in unsolicited faxes.

I was wondering, was this addressed in the prior go around that it\'s
not targeted specifically at consumers because small business are
consumers, in essence. So what is the ruling? How does the ruling affect
the commercial establishments?

MS. McMAHON: Yes, well, the TCPA is a little tricky sometimes because in
some cases a particular provision only applies to calls to residential
telephone subscribers. They would not extend to business numbers. But in
the area of our unsolicited fax prohibition, that ban actually extends
to both businesses and residential numbers.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Okay, thank you. And my second question was to Richard.
You named some exclusions, and you mentioned charities. Was that also
political calls as part of the exclusion premises?

(Laughter.)

MR. SMITH: Yes. That\'s a short answer.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Can we change that?

MS. ROOKER: I\'m wondering does it include the professional fund raisers
who say they\'re calling on behalf of a charity, notably the Firemen\'s
Association or the Policemen\'s Association, when in fact I think about
70 percent of those funds go to the fund raiser. Are they excluded?

MS. McMAHON: Well, the Commission has ruled in either it\'s \'92 order
or maybe in one of its orders on reconsideration in the mid nineties
that a, you know, for-profit telemarketer that is hired by an entity to
do its fund raising would, in fact, be able to also take advantage of an
exemption.

So in that situation, I mean, if the exemption applies to, say, a
non-profit charity, just because it hired a for-profit organization
wouldn\'t mean that it still wouldn\'t be permitted to make those calls.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: All right. We have some other, now who had their hands up
first? I\'m not sure. Jeff. I\'m hearing Jeff was next, and then we\'ll
go down the \--

MR. KRAMER: I\'m not sure I\'m next but next to Shirley. Jeff Kramer
with AARP. In the interest of time, I\'m not going to reiterate, but I
do want to echo our support for the comments that Ken McEldowney made in
saying how important we think that a national do not call list is to
consumers.

Telemarketing and the concerns about telemarketing fraud have been
something AARP has worked on for a number of years. We\'ve done studies.
We\'ve done a number of focus groups and found that older Americans tend
to be more susceptible to fraudulent telemarketing calls. More and more,
especially with predictive dialers and other things, they\'re becoming
afraid to almost pick up the phone, so we think something needs to be
done.

We\'ll be filing comments, so you\'ll be hearing what we have to say on
a number of the issues you talked about.

I guess my question is about the coverage and the exemptions. Do you
envision, if the FCC were to do something similar to what the FTC will
hopefully adopt, do you envision covering the exemptions that the FTC
doesn\'t have jurisdiction over it or do you just envision this being
the common carriers now being included and then we would still have the
exemptions for the banks, and insurance companies, and those kind of
things?

MR. SMITH: I think we would envision that our rules would cover all of
those entities.

MR. KRAMER: Okay.

MS. WALTERS: Just to add, though, what we on the staff level envision at
this moment can\'t really predict what the Commission\'s going to do.

MR. KRAMER: Sure.

MS. WALTERS: And so the record will influence the options that the
Commission feels it has, and if you all do have a chance to take a look
at this document if you\'re curious to find out more, you\'ll find that
the Commission has framed its questions pretty broadly in terms of the
national do not call list, in particular, but also some of the other
issues to really try to get as rich a record as possible and to feel
like it has a lot of different options for how it might proceed.

So you know, it\'s an unusual situation to have one agency proposing to
do something, to have another agency saying, well, what are our range of
options, so comment will be extremely important, and I really encourage
people to look at the specifics of what the Commission has said.

MR. KRAMER: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, Andrea. We\'ll just go around the table if that\'s all
right.

MS. McMAHON: Can I just jump in here very quickly?

MS. ROOKER: Sure.

MS. McMAHON: Michelle reminded me. We do have a section in our NPRM that
discusses the exemption for tax exempt non-profit organizations, and you
had asked about a for profit telemarketing group that is hired by a
non-profit to do its fund raising.

But we do have a related question in our NPRM that you might be
interested in, and that is when a non-profit organization is conducting
a joint solicitation with a for-profit organization.

In other words, the non-profit organization is making the calls,
soliciting funds for its organization but at the same time indicating
that a certain part of those proceeds will go towards the purchase of a
magazine, or something like that, which would benefit the for-profit
organization that it was conducting the joint solicitation with.

So if you all have had experience with those types of calls, we would
certainly be interested in your comments in that area.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Andrea.

MS. WILLIAMS: Andrea Williams from CTIA. I have two questions, one is
basically sort of piggy back on Jeff with respect to more coordination,
and the second question I think is more of a legal question.

Is there any coordination or, I assume, I hope there is between the FTC
and the FCC? I think my fear is that what you\'re going to come out with
are dueling regulations, and then you\'re going to be in a situation
where an industry is trying to implement rules that may be conflicting.
So that\'s my first question.

My second question is whether this national do not call list, if the
Commission decides and the FTC decides that this is a good thing to do
and move forward, will that decision preempt or supersede state do not
call lists?

MS. WALTERS: Andrea, have you had a chance to read the NPRM yet?

MS. WILLIAMS: Not all of it, no.

MS. WALTERS: Okay because I think that \-- and it is sort of the back
half of the document \--

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay.

MS. WALTERS: \-- that is more relevant to your issues, so when you get
there I hope you find it more informative.

The FTC and the FCC have been talking to one another. You know, when \--
I think Richard sort of mentioned that we were aware that there were a
lot of comments filed.

In fact, Richard and Erica attended basically the entire FTC forum.
They\'ve read numerous comments that have been submitted in the other
agency\'s proceeding, and on various levels, the two agencies have been
talking to one another.

So we pretty much know what they\'re proposing, and they pretty much
know what we\'re proposing. I think that a higher level of coordination
would really be impossible considering the fact that we have two
statutes and that there are a lot of different things going on at this
early stage, but I would expect that coordination would continue and
become, you know, even more coordinated as these things progress.

I will just note that although the Commission reserved the option to
take complete action at this time, the Commission did note that it might
potentially find the need to seek further comment on certain issues
particularly pertaining to a national do not call list.

If, for example, the FTC were to act, you know, very shortly and they
had an order, a rule, instead of a proposal, the Commission reserved its
right to seek some additional comments. So in addition to the agencies
talking to one another, the FCC has said we might need more information
to get a better understanding of how things might fit together.

In terms of state do not call lists, I\'m pretty sure that the item tees
up pretty directly what would be the relationship of a national do not
call list to state do not call lists. Is that right you guys?

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Brenda.

MS. BATTAT: One thing I can say, one easy way to get rid of them is to
just say call back on the relay, please, and they put down the phone
immediately.

(Laughter.)

But I have a real major concern. People with hearing loss often will
pick up the phone and they don\'t hear enough to know what is this call.
They don\'t know how to differentiate is this a call that I need to try
to hear or try to find a way to get this information, or is this just a
call that I really don\'t need to hear. They really don\'t know what
they\'re dealing with, and it can be scary particularly for older
people. It can also be very worrisome about maybe they\'ve missed
something important. Maybe it\'s a friend calling and they cannot figure
out what this call is. So it\'s a big concern.

One of the things that I hope that you will \-- so I think there
definitely needs to be some way that we can, you know, either have a do
call or don\'t call list. But my concern is that to get onto the list,
whatever kind of list it\'s going to end up being, that getting onto it
is made consumer friendly for all people with disabilities, that there
are multiple ways that you can get onto that list and it does not
require a phone call, for instance.

There has to be multiple ways to access getting onto that list and also
that the information, that the list \-- the awareness and information
about the existence of that list is made accessible to people with
disabilities.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. I think Susan was next.

MS. GRANT: Hi. Susan Grant, National Consumers league.

Is the definition of pre-existing relationship set by the statute or is
it set by the rules susceptible to change? I ask because I think that
this is going to be a much more important issue with the possible
creation of a do not call list and the question of, for instance,
whether you buy something in a store and give your phone number whether
that implicitly then allows you to receive telemarketing calls from the
vendor.

MS. McMAHON: I appreciate that comment. I\'m just checking on one thing.
The definition of an established business relationship is found in the
Commission\'s rules, and while the statute, the TCPA, created the
established business relationship exemption, it was not defined there.
It was defined only later in the Commission\'s rules.

MS. ROOKER: Does that answer your question, Susan?

MS. GRANT: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Bob.

MR. SEGALMAN: I just wanted Brenda to know that I have implemented her
idea using a tape recorder next to my speaker phone that tells people to
call back with Speech to Speech.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Bob. Nanci.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: This goes in with what both Bob and Brenda said, but my
personal frustration is with the unsolicited fax which now seem to be
coming in alarming rate but there\'s no fax number to send it back to to
say do not, you know, take me off your fax list, what they do is they
give you a phone number to call, and then there are a series of buttons
and things, you know, that you have to follow.

Because of that \-- and I continue to either do it or have somebody do
it for me \-- but who takes note of the fact that, you know, that when I
put my stuff on \"do not fax me again list,\" how do I know that that\'s
actually being done.

Since there\'s no money back, how do I know that there\'s any
enforcement. I mean, what can I do to stop wasting my time? I mean, who
is going to be the one that\'s really actually going to do something
about this besides taking my comments?

MS. McMAHON: Well, let me start off by reiterating that the TCPA\'s
prohibition on unsolicited fax ad is very broad and it\'s really \-- it
doesn\'t require one to request that you be placed on a do not fax list.

In other words, an entity or business is not permitted to send you an
unsolicited fax ad without your prior express permission. So if, in
fact, you haven\'t given your permission, you are receiving these
unsolicited fax ads, I think you have a violation of the law, and you
would be able to file a complaint with the FCC on that.

MS. ROOKER: Can\'t you also take him to small claims court?

MS. McMAHON: Absolutely, yes. As Michelle described \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MS. McMAHON: \-- there is the private right of action. You could go to
small claims court.

MS. ROOKER: You can do the same \-- I mean, many of us don\'t have time
to go to small claims court, but \--

MS. WALTERS: Nancy, I understand your frustration because you\'re
talking about the practical problem of just getting them to stop, and
the problem is that, I mean, they don\'t get the one bite at the apple
the way a telemarketer does.

A telemarketer can legitimately call you the one time and you say never
call me again, and they put you on a list for ten years. But the fax ad
was never supposed to be sent to you in the first place, and so the fact
that they are not, you know, honoring our list and they put an 800
number that doesn\'t really go anywhere, or whatever, that just
compounds the problem.

You know, some people are not aware of the fact that they\'re really not
allowed to do it the first time. And obviously there is an
enforceability problem. Sometimes you might want to go to Court but you
just don\'t know who they are.

I really encourage you to file complaints with the Commission and make
sure the people know that. We are talking about ads, so there are \--
it\'s less clear about other kinds of unsolicited fax context, but in
the main, people typically send these because you want you to buy
something.

MS. ROOKER: Let\'s go to our phone again. Ken, do you have any comments?

MR. McELDOWNEY: No. I think the comments I have were pretty much
expressed right in the beginning. So I don\'t really have anything to
add.

MS. ROOKER: David?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: No, nothing to add.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Do we have any other questions for our panelists?

(Pause.)

Let me be sure that I understand clearly some of the things that we\'ve
brought up today: one is the feasibility of a do not call list; another
which Bob brought up about whether or not small businesses or businesses
in general are included in the prohibition or the ability to tell a
telemarketer not to call you. I\'m not sure we got an answer to that.

I\'d like to know what the answer to that is because I run a small
business, and I will tell you that we get telemarketing calls from
people. I don\'t want them. We also get faxes which are illegal, but
they do it anyway.

Do businesses fall under the prohibition against calling you again if
you tell them not to? Maybe you answered that and I didn\'t understand
it. I do miss things some times.

MS. McMAHON: Okay. I\'m going to try to answer your question and then
follow up if I haven\'t.

Under the current PCPA rules on telephone solicitations, if an entity
calls you, you may request that they place you on a do not call list.

MS. ROOKER: As a small business, you\'re talking about?

MS. McMAHON: No, no. Forgive me. I\'m sorry.

MS. ROOKER: As an individual. Okay.

MS. McMAHON: Okay. Now I get what your real question is.

MS. ROOKER: I\'m asking about a small business. Do I have the same right
under this law?

MS. McMAHON: The short answer is no.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. McMAHON: Currently, the definition of telephone solicitation only
includes calls to residential telephone subscribers. So the do not call
provisions which apply to telephone solicitations would not extend to
business numbers.

In other words, you could not place a business number or require a
company to place your business number on their do not call list. Now,
that doesn\'t mean that we wouldn\'t encourage a business to request
that they be placed on a do not call list. It may be that there are a
lot of telemarketers out there that would, in fact, honor that request.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Matt?

MS. WALTERS: And then \-- sorry. Erica, she did say this earlier,
Shirley, which is that faxes are different.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, yes. I know that.

MS. WALTERS: The fax \--

MS. ROOKER: I know that, right.

MS. WALTERS: \-- part is not restricted to residential so \--

MS. ROOKER: I understand that, right.

MS. WALTERS: \-- anyway.

MS. ROOKER: Matt.

MR. BENNETT: I have a question. Is there consideration for a do not call
list, don\'t care about the relationship, don\'t care if it\'s a
business, don\'t call me anytime, anywhere, anyplace, just don\'t call
without any exemptions, without any exclusions, this is don\'t call me
list?

MS. ROOKER: And this is a man from a telephone company?

(Laughter.)

MR. BENNETT: I\'m sorry.

MS. ROOKER: I couldn\'t help that, Matt. I\'m sorry.

MR. SMITH: I know it\'s a TCPA in allowing us to establish a national do
not call list specifically limits us to residential customers, so it
would not allow.

MS. ROOKER: I\'m sorry. I\'m having trouble hearing you. I suspect some
others are too.

MR. SMITH: The statutory authority on the TCPA, the language for
national do not call list, would limit us to residential customers only
so therefore it would not allow business customers to be on that.

MS. ROOKER: I think his question was can you just say to everybody in
the world don\'t call me.

MR. SMITH: I think the answer to that is no.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. I\'m not sure who\'s first. Do you want to follow up
on that?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Bob Chrostowski. I guess the issue is that if your
number is published in a telephone directory, does that constitute
disclosure that makes you eligible to receive these calls? I think
that\'s the real heart of the matter.

MS. WALTERS: Well, I mean, having a number published in a directory does
not constitute your express permission. I think that because people are
allowed to \-- entities are allowed to telemarket to you unless you ask
not to be \-- I mean, they can call you but it doesn\'t count as your
express permission to do so.

They can call you the one time. You say take me off your list. You know,
I don\'t think \-- I believe \-- is that something that the Commission
said expressly or am I just expressing a staff opinion?

Oh, perhaps the Commission has not said that expressly, but I think that
certainly \-- on a staff level that\'s my operating concept. I mean, an
established business relationship is a different kind of thing.

I hate to note, but I will say again that what Richard is talking about,
the Commission\'s inability to mandate a national do not call list that
extends to everyone and not just residential customers is because the
statute limits the Commission\'s authority. So going to Congress is a
way to get a statute with broader authority.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. David, Andrea, and then Nancy. I\'m not sure if
that\'s the right order. I apologize if it isn\'t. David.

MR. POEHLMAN: This is David Poehlman with the American Council for the
Blind again. I have a couple of things that have been raised either
through further thinking or observing and taking part in the discussion.

One is, is there any role being played or can there be asked a role to
be played by the telephone companies in this process. For example, would
it be possible when you sign up for new phone service just for the phone
company to say would you like to receive telemarketing calls, yes or no.
And you say no, then they put you on a do not call list that\'s
distributed, you know, to organizations that have signed up to receive
it. That\'s one thing.

Another thing is if your number is not published \-- and I guess I could
ask this another way, but if your number is not published, does that
trigger some indication that you don\'t want to be called by
telemarketers?

Or to put it another way, are there certain practices of obtaining
telephone numbers that are not permissible under any statute or any
regulation that the Federal government or any of the state governments
now hold, and how well are they enforced? I guess those are my two
things.

MS. ROOKER: They\'re all looking puzzled, David.

MR. SMITH: I don\'t think we exactly know the answer to your second
question. Just in regard to your first question, I know that in the
notice we have asked about how to better inform consumers of the
existing company\'s specific list, and so if you have any ideas, we\'ll
certainly welcome those.

Also, there\'s a laundry list of things that the Commission has to do if
we do adopt a national do not call list, and I believe one of those is
to require the common carriers to notify their customers of the
existence of such a list.

MS. WALTERS: David, it\'s Michelle again, and I will say I am not aware
of any special treatment that you get if you have an unpublished number
in terms of telemarketing. Our rules don\'t have any special provision
for those who have unpublished numbers. It\'s possible that some state
regimes may recognize that as a category.

Some entities do their telemarketing by using phone books or customer
lists that they\'ve gotten from, your know, or were purchased through a
warehouse or something. Some may do it by just going through all the
numbers in a particular exchange, so I don\'t think that \-- my guess is
that you probably get a little less if you use \-- just from a practical
standpoint \-- if you have an unpublished number because certainly \--
you know, I think a lot of sort of local businesses who engage in
telemarketing may want to come clean your gutters, or whatever, they
just use their local phone book, and if you\'re not there, they won\'t
call you.

So as a practical matter, that might be helpful, but other telemarketing
does take place in a more, you know, systematic way and that might not
protect you. But I am not aware of any regime that puts unpublished
numbers in a special category for that purpose, you know, avoiding
telemarketing or saying it\'s more of a violation to call you as opposed
to calling me.

MS. ROOKER: I know that Andrea and Nancy both had their hands up. Okay,
Nanci Linke-Ellis.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Going along with the, you know, about how telemarketers
use phone books, I think maybe one of the most obvious ways to sell this
is that this should be \-- common carriers should be required to put in
their phone book a list of places where they can make a complaint. You
know, list a phone number for, you know, unsolicited phone calls, list a
fax number for unsolicited fax so that at least we have a place to, you
know, to qualify the fact that we have been receiving them.

I could very easily go to small claims court. You know, that would take
work. It would take time. It would take money. What I would like to be
able to do is just take a fax that comes in to me and write \"do not fax
me again,\" and fax it back to them. But they don\'t provide a fax
number. So there\'s got to be some easy solution to do this, and the
phone book seems the obvious.

MS. ROOKER: Well, I think their point was they\'re breaking the law by
faxing you the first time. So, how can you \-- I hear where you\'re
coming from. If you do get a fax from someone illegally, should they be
required to put a fax number on it so you can contact them?

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Most of them don\'t even put the names of the companies
on them.

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: You have to call and find out who it is.

MS. ROOKER: Right, and that\'s a very interesting \-- do you have a
comment on that?

MS. McMAHON: I should add, though, there are also identification
requirements on faxes that are being sent to recipients. They are
required to identify themselves on the fax and I believe also provide a
contact number, but I\'ll have to check on that. So that would also be
something that you might be able to pursue in a complaint if you saw no
identification information on the unsolicited fax add.

MS. WALTERS: Just to point out the value of filing a complaint about
something like that with the FCC, the FCC may know who\'s sending that
fax. They may have been able to find out through receiving multiple
copies. Through their investigations, they may actually be able to say,
oh, look another one of those whereas you would have no way of knowing
as an individual.

So I mean, sometimes unfortunately I think the enforcement bureau gets
stumped too, but they sometimes they actually know so it\'s worth at
least a try.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Michael.

MR. TAKEMURA: Michael Takemura with Hewlett-Packard. The question is is
there anything in the NPRM with the growing number of individuals that
are using wireless or cellular phones as a primary phone without any
land-base lines and how the provision works. I think you said earlier
that they were all excluded.

MS. McMAHON: The rules right now prohibit auto dialed calls to numbers
for which the party is charged for the call. What we are asking for in
the NPRM is more comments on telemarketing calls to wireless numbers in
general.

The Commission recently passed rules that will give consumers \-- and
I\'m not an expert on this \-- but the ability to port their wireline
numbers to their wireless phone, and we have asked some questions on
what that will mean for wireless subscribers and if there are any ways
we might improve our rules or adopt some rules to specifically address
those calls that might be on the increase in the future.

MS. ROOKER: Would you define for us the difference between auto dialers
and predictive dialers?

MS. McMAHON: Well, I\'d rather not and the reason being \-- I can tell
you a little bit more about a predictive dialer, but we do ask questions
in our NPRM about an auto dialer and what types of technologies are used
by telemarketers today to automatically dial numbers.

So the definition of an auto dialer versus a predictive dialer is teed
up in our NPRM, and I would encourage you to file comments on the types
of calls you\'re getting using various technologies, and we encourage
industry that use these technologies to describe them for us.

But my understanding is that a predictive dialer is a technology that
gives a telemarketer the ability to kind of try to estimate or predict
the time that a consumer will answer the phone and a telemarketer, an
actual individual, will be available to answer that call.

And what a predictive dialer does, though, often is to dial more
telephone numbers than there are telemarketers available to take those
calls. So when you the consumer answers the telephone, if a telemarketer
is not available, the predictive dialer may, in fact, abandon the call
and you may hear either dead air or a click.

MS. ROOKER: All right.

MS. McMAHON: Whereas an auto dialer, in general without going into too
much detail, again, because this is something we\'re asking questions on
is more just as gives someone the ability to automatically dial numbers.
Now, a predictive dialer may fall within that category, but we\'re
asking questions about that.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Thank you. Okay. We had more comments, questions. Bob.

MR. SEGALMAN: One of the issues will be the appointability of wireless
numbers and wireline numbers, and this would have an effect on the
telemarketers. I know that from the standpoint of equipment
manufacturers this represents difficulty unless there is some defined
mechanism to determine what is a wireline number or a wireless number.

And I read the notice, and I see some agency there that is used by
Federal government law enforcement agencies from the standpoint of
clarification of numbers. Would you like to comment on what the intent
is in this regard?

MS. WALTERS: Well, I would say this is an area that is experiencing very
dynamic change, and so the Commission has asked questions because
there\'s a strong interest, I think, in the legitimate telemarketing
industry in identifying numbers that they really shouldn\'t be calling.
So if the question is auto dial calls to wireless phones, you know, they
would like to know so they don\'t mess up and make that mistake.

Things are really changing in this area. The Commission has authorized
mandated wireless number pooling which has to do with how the blocks of
numbers are distributed, and those changes are going to take effect, I
think, as soon as around Thanksgiving time.

Then I believe in a year \-- is that the current \-- it\'s been sort of
a moving target \-- but in a year, wireless number portability is
supposed to also be available, and that would mean that you could move
your wireless phone from one wireless carrier to another instead of
having to give up your number if you change providers.

So what is possible now and currently in state may not be possible and
may not be as useful in as short as a year when the way the wireless
numbers are distributed is changed.

So the Commission \-- you know, obviously you ask questions at a point
in time, and the Commission asks some questions about how \-- there
might be more information about which phones or wireless phones, and it
did indicate that I think it\'s New Star is the numbering administrator
who sort of has a handle on what numbers are assigned to wireless
phones.

They\'re really not \-- they don\'t know who the individuals are, but
they know what the blocks of numbers that go to the carriers who then
provide them to their customers. But things may look really different as
some of these other mandates take effect.

I will just note, so I would say Bob, any insight that anybody has on
this peace of things would be very very valuable to the Commission
because there are a lot of different pieces to the puzzle, and it\'s
hard to know how it\'s all going to fit together.

But I think everyone realizes there\'s a lot of potential help in having
telemarketers be able to know if it\'s a wireless phone or not and
obviously more protection for consumers.

I will just note that we have seen a press release from the Direct
Marketing Association which I\'d like to say probably is responding to
some degree to that section in the NPRM saying they\'re going to make
available lists of wireless numbers to their members to help them avoid
violations that have to do with calling wireless phones.

Again, all I can say is I\'ve seen the press release. I don\'t really
know much about how they\'re planning on implementing it, and I\'d be
particularly curious to see how they think it\'s going to work when some
of these other rule changes take effect.

So, sorry to be \-- it\'s a confusing area but an area in which the
Commission would really welcome comment from a lot of different
perspectives.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have any other comments or questions for our
panelists? Yes.

MS. STEWART: Hi. Pam Stewart. I just wanted to know if you\'ve addressed
in this \-- I just found out yesterday, I was trying to call back
somebody that kept calling me, and my call intercept was bypassed
because there was a phone number. But when, you know, I answered the
phone there was nobody there, and I wasn\'t going to wait for them.

But when I called back, the number that came up on my caller id it says
this number is no longer in service. So I called Verizon and I asked
them what\'s up with this, and they said the telemarketers have found
out now that if they have a lot of trunks they can ask their rep to put
that message on all the other trunks so it bypasses your intercept \--

MS. ROOKER: That\'s right.

MS. STEWART: \-- but you still get those telemarketing calls.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. I\'ve had the same issue because I\'ve tried calling
them back because they\'ve gotten through because they actually register
a number, and they get through my caller intercept, but when I try
calling back, there\'s no one there. It\'s not a number that I can call.

MS. McMAHON: I will just quickly respond by saying that we would
encourage you to file comments on that particular experience. We do ask
questions in our NPRM about whether to require telemarketers to identify
themselves in the form of caller ID or whether we should, in fact,
prohibit them from blocking that kind of information. So please include
it in your comments.

MS. ROOKER: What they do is if a telephone number is registered with no
name, and then when you call it back you don\'t get, it says it\'s not
accessible. You can\'t get through to it. That is sneaky business.

What we\'re going to do is Micaela Tucker is \-- we don\'t know whether
she\'s going to be able to join us or not. She was schedule to speak at
1:00. What I think we\'re going to do is post-pone until then the
discussion and recommendations to the FCC on the TCPA, and that will
give us more time to do it because we certainly don\'t have time to do
it right now, if that\'s okay with everybody.

Did someone else have a comment? Jim, did you have a comment?

MR. TOBIAS: No.

MS. ROOKER: Then Scott has an announcement to make.

MR. MARSHALL: We do have lunch available for committee members. If you
need to find one of our cafeterias, it\'s on the courtyard level of this
building, and you have two choices. Enjoy.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We will be back here at 1:00, and we\'ll be prepared
to put together some recommendations on the TCPA, and thank you very
much to our panelists.

(Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m. the meeting in the above-entitled matter was
recessed, to reconvene at 1:00 p.m. this same day, Friday, November 8,
2002.)

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[A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N]{.underline}

(1:00 p.m.)

MS. ROOKER: I can see it now. We fed them too much lunch. We have an
addition to the agenda also this afternoon, and so we really need to
move along.

We did hear from Micaela. Micaela is expecting her second child, and she
was not able to fly in to our meeting, so she sent her apologies. We are
not going to have a report from the committee.

Jim, I think you were familiar with some of the things that have been
going on in the committee, but I don\'t know that we necessarily have a
report. Would you agree with that?

MR. TOBIAS: Well, maybe if I could talk just for two minutes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. TOBIAS: Or a minute.

MS. ROOKER: I\'ll tell you what, can we address the TCPA and then put
you in after that?

MR. TOBIAS: Sure. Perfect.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. So that we can follow through in what we were doing
earlier.

As is apparent, the TCPA is a complex piece of business, and I don\'t
know how much of it we can get our arms around, but perhaps there are
some aspects of it that we can discuss and make recommendations to the
Commission.

Certainly some of the issues of fraudulent practices could be one of the
things that we address. I\'d like to hear from you, and I think we may
as well just have an open discussion on what we want to consider, and
we\'ll take it from there. If you want to make a proposal, you need to
make it in the form of a motion. Certainly then we can have discussion
on the motion before we vote on it.

So first off, I do not want to propose what the subjects are that we
talk about. I don\'t think that\'s right. I think it\'s your business,
so what I\'d like to do is to hear from you on what is some of your
thoughts on what you\'ve learned this morning. Susan?

MS. GRANT: I\'d like to make a proposal that the committee support the
creation of a national do not call registry.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I second the motion.

MS. ROOKER: You\'re awake, Ken, that\'s good. That\'s good. This is a
rather broad proposal in that we don\'t address issues of the states\'
existing lists, etcetera, etcetera. How would you all like to discuss
this?

MS. ROOKER: No one is talking about a national do not call list?
There\'s been a proposal on the table. It has been proposed and seconded
that we support a national do not call list. We\'re not putting
perimeters on it or anything else, but the general recommendation. What
does that sit with the committee? David?

MR. POEHLMAN: This is Dave Poehlman, American Counsel for the blind. I
guess it depends on how detailed we want to get, but do we want to talk
about, for example, what some of the means of putting that in place
would be like, for example, do we want to in substance within this
propose that the national do not call be enacted through interaction
with the telephone carriers so that consumers can file through their
carrier or by some other means, or do we have anything to discuss there?

MS. ROOKER: Well, it\'s Susan\'s proposal. It\'s her motion. Susan.

MS. GRANT: Can I amend my motion to say that the committee supports the
creation of a national do not call registry that is easily accessible to
all consumers?

MS. ROOKER: Without us trying to get under the burden of defining what
accessible means? Jeff.

MR. KRAMER: Jeff Kramer of the AARP. I support Susan\'s motion, and I
think that it\'s important that we try to keep away from as many
specifics as we can. I know a number of our organizations will be filing
separately, and then we can talk about the details of that. But if we
have a consensus here that we think it\'s a good idea, then we can let
other people worry about the details.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have any other comments before we go to a vote on it?
Bob.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: My only concern about the national call list is that we
might have conflicting state regulations, and therefore, I would ask
that there would be some uniformity in this matter.

We can\'t have Federal regulations in effect and then have conflicting
state regulations. This creates confusion for all parties.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Are you proposing an amendment to Susan\'s motion?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I would like to know the authority that the Commission
would be operating under and then if indeed, for example, would it
supersede state regulations in effect regarding this matter.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Your question is really outside the scope of the
motion. You\'re really asking for specifics, and what we have on the
table is a rather general statement that we propose it without us
defining the perimeters. Paul.

MR. LUDWICK: Paul Ludwick with Sprint. I think that\'s a good idea not
to put any perimeters on it because I think when we start dealing with
individual state regulations, you start getting into commerce and things
that the FCC can\'t be involved in and that there are frankly
constitutional rules of.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. That makes sense. Do we have any other comments?

All right, the question has been called. Andrea. I think you maybe got
your hand up there.

MS. WILLIAMS: I agree with Bob. Maybe it\'s, you know, we have another
motion and deal with that issue separately, but I\'m very very
concerned, and I think my question earlier to the FCC expressed that
concern in terms of having a Federal system and then having 50 different
ask \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MS. WILLIAMS: \-- with different states.

MS. ROOKER: All right. I\'ll tell you what. Can we address that in a
follow-up to the original question?

MS. WILLIAMS: Sure.

MS. ROOKER: Because let\'s take a vote on Susan\'s question, and then I
think we can go to your follow-up, and then you can make a separate
motion if you want. Would that be acceptable? All right, so we have the
question has been called. All in favor, say aye.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Opposed?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: All right. It\'s unanimously carried. Thank you very much. I
hear from our folks on the phone. You guys in agreement?

MR. LOWENSTEIN: Yep.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I guess I didn\'t say \"I\" loud enough.

MS. ROOKER: You didn\'t. Shout it out Ken. Okay.

Now, let\'s go back to Andrea\'s issue. Do you want to put that into
form of a motion that this be something that\'s serious consideration
when that national list is being considered?

MS. WILLIAMS: I think Bob said it perfectly.

MS. ROOKER: Bob?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Well, let me start off by saying the question I have is
does this fall under totally the FCC\'s ability to create a mandate on
a, you know, country wide basis or, for example, does the FTC become
involved with this matter as well from the standpoint of the Federal
Trade Commission being that this is a commerce activity?

So, I think there\'s a lot of questions here, and I think what we should
do as a committee here is only espouse that there would be uniform
regulations \--

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: \-- that should be achieved in trying to reach the goal
that this committee is seeking.

MS. ROOKER: Do you want to put that in the form of a motion?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Maybe Andrea this is your turn now.

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. I move that we accept the provision where to the \--
let me try and think. The national call list, that whatever call list is
developed that the FCC do so in conjunction with the Federal Trade
Commission and that those regulations will be uniform not only in
promulgation of those rules but also in implementation of that national
call list.

MS. ROOKER: And do you want to mention the states?

MS. WILLIAMS: No. I think it\'s pretty clear \-\--

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. WILLIAMS: \-- in terms of uniform.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right. We have a motion on the floor. Is it
seconded? Seconded, okay. And any \-- Susan do you want to \--

MS. GRANT: Can you just read the motion back to us so I understand
clearly what it says? Oh, I thought maybe Scott was transcribing or
something.

MR. MARSHALL: Yes. I hope I\'ve got it down correctly.

MS. ROOKER: We get a lot of this from the audio as well, so.

MR. MARSHALL: Okay. That the committee supports \-- the committee
believes that in connection with establishing a national call list that
this would be done in consultation with the Federal Trade Commission and
that regulations would be both uniform and would be implemented
similarly. Does that say it right?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you Scott. Jim.

MR. TOBIAS: I have a question about it. Maybe it\'s that I don\'t
understand the issue at hand. Is the concern that companies would be
confused about how to \-- that telemarketing companies would be confused
about whom not to call, that there might be more than one set of lists,
or \--

MS. WILLIAMS: The concern is that you may have rules being developed
that tells you how to implement the do not call list and the processes
in terms of how do you get the names, what telemarketer should do or
should not do.

Will those rules make FTC come out with one set, the FCC comes out with
another set, and then you have 50 states with their \--

MR. TOBIAS: Okay.

MS. WILLIAMS: \-- perspective on how that should be implemented, and
then you\'re in a situation where you have an industry trying to
implement God knows how many different rules and regulations, and \--

MR. TOBIAS: So it\'s really the burden that might be placed on carriers,
for example, if they\'re involved in the collection of these names or
the storage of the data base, or what have you \--

MS. WILLIAMS: Exactly.

MR. TOBIAS: \-- in addition to the telemarketing industry. So it\'s
really simplification of the implementation from the perspective of any
entities responsible for collecting the do not call list and
harmonization of rules.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I believe it\'s jurisdictional overlap as well where
there\'s dissimilarities in the jurisdictional authorities of the FTC
and the FCC.

MS. ROOKER: I mean, some businesses will come under the rules in the FCC
and some will come under the FTC, right?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Right.

MS. ROOKER: So that\'s part of the issue here is that the rules be
consistent will all the telemarketer entities, I believe. Susan.

MS. GRANT: I\'d just like to clarify though that as I understand it, the
motion before us does not make reference to the states. We\'re talking
about consistency between the FCC and the FTC.

MS. ROOKER: Right. That\'s correct.

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, then let me amend that motion that there also be
consistency with respect to whether the states adopt the national do not
call as center or that their rules and regulations are consistent with
the Federal Rules.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, now we\'ve got an amendment, and do I hear a second to
the amendment?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I have a suggestion because I sort of like the way that
we sort of started off which is sort of dealing with the key issues sort
of separately. So we first adopted a thing on do not call. I think it
would be best if we keep the second motion fairly pure in a sense of
having it be coordinated with the FTC regulation.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, and then make a third amendment.

MR. McELDOWNEY: And then have a third motion \--

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. McELDOWNEY: \-- dealing with state preemption.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. I think that makes sense, Ken. Thank you. Okay, so why
don\'t we vote on \-- if that\'s okay with you, Andrea.

MS. WILLIAMS: Fine.

MS. ROOKER: Let\'s take the original amendment which dealt only with the
FTC and the FCC\'s coordination of rule making, all right, the original
motion that we had on the table. Can we do that and vote on that? All
right. Then let\'s take all in favor.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MR. McELDOWNEY: Aye.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We heard you, thank you. Opposed?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. That has been approved. Then we will go to the issue
of the states. Matt.

MR. BENNETT: One of the \-- I\'m going to fumble in the phraseology of
what I\'m trying to say. Of course, I\'m from the telecommunications
industry, Shirley, so I do that a lot.

(Laughter.)

MR. BENNETT: One of the overriding concerns I developed by listening to
the explanations and status of this NPRM this morning was on several
occasions I was directed that this is an issue more related to Congress
or to the centralized government as well.

So in terms of coordinating jurisdictional overlaps, I\'m wondering if
it\'s beyond the scope of this committee to copy or to inform the
appropriate congressional authority that says where these overlaps
exists, it provides them an opportunity to provide functional guidance
or find omissions or extensions to the authority that will satisfy the
goal now instead of in yet another revision of these rules and orders
five years from now which makes the overlaps and jurisdictional
conflicts removed at that future time.

I think there\'s an opportunity if we just copy information to our
appropriate legislative branches that they may \--

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t \--

MR. BENNETT: \-- have an opportunity \--

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t \-- my legal assistant here to my right says that
he doesn\'t believe that we can do that.

MR. BENNETT: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. BENNETT: That\'s fine.

MR. MARSHALL: We can give advice to the Commission.

MS. ROOKER: We can give advice to the Commission. That is our goal. All
right, now the third issue, then, comes back to the question of whether
or not we want to \-- did we do that? I\'m getting confused. We haven\'t
done that. Whether or not someone wants to address the issue that there
be consistency between the Federal regulations and state regulations.
That was suggested. Andrea, do you want to frame this in a motion?

MS. WILLIAMS: I move that we adopt, support a \-- oh \-- Mike. Maybe you
can help me.

MR. TAKEMURA: I think \-- I\'m going to try and help.

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you, Mike.

MR. TAKEMURA: I think we can just duplicate the previous motion and
replace \"FTC\" with \"states.\"

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. WILLIAMS: Sounds good.

MS. ROOKER: Does that work? Susan?

MS. GRANT: I don\'t think that this is \-- if we\'re directing this to
the FCC, then I don\'t think that it makes any sense to \--

MS. ROOKER: Well, we\'re saying that \--

MS. GRANT: \-- narrow this \--

MS. ROOKER: \-- the FCC coordinate with the states. We\'re not directing
it toward the states.

MS. GRANT: But the states already have existing laws, nearly 30 of them.

MS. ROOKER: Right, I know. I think what we were \-- well, I don\'t know.
I should let Andrea speak for herself. I think what she was saying is
she would \-- that the FCC would work with the states.

MS. GRANT: Okay, well I\'d \--

MS. ROOKER: That was the recommendation \--

MS. GRANT: \-- be interested in \--

MS. ROOKER: \-- to the FCC not to the states. Is that correct?

MR. BENNETT: Shirley?

MS. ROOKER: Yes, Matt.

MR. BENNETT: It might be in the consumer\'s best interest if the FCC
requests the states relinquish and let the FCC rules supersede theirs to
provide uniformity.

MS. ROOKER: I\'m not sure that we can \-- preempt the states?

MR. BENNETT: The FCC could potentially request that \--

MS. ROOKER: Preempt or supersede.

MR. BENNETT: \-- piece of legislation from each individual state where
they agree that the FCC legislation supersedes an individual state\'s
legislation.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t know whether we can make that kind of
recommendation.

MS. WILLIAMS: The recommendation that I want to make is that the states,
either their rules are consistent with the FCC and the FT \-- the
Federal Rules or if those states who do not have a do not call list that
they adopt the Federal Rules as part of their \--

MS. ROOKER: I think the point was we can\'t make recommendation to the
state. And you\'re saying we want the states to do. We can request \--

MR. BENNETT: No, what I requested was the FCC request to the state that
they relinquish jurisdiction where they find the FCC rules supersede
them to provide uniformity to the consumer.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. That\'s a political hot potato.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Looking at the notice at Article 48, it says, \"the
commission seeks comment on whether and if so to what degree state
requirements should be preempted.\" So therefore \--

MS. ROOKER: So we can comment then?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes. This is what we are doing as a committee,
recommending that the requirements be uniform among the states.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. That\'s what you were saying.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: All right. I think that\'s where Andrea was going. Do we
have that motion? Has it been seconded. I\'m supposed to keep track of
that.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I second. I second.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. Let\'s call for the question to be stated.

MS. WILLIAMS: Can we restate the motion again?

MS. ROOKER: Can we restate it, please? I think he\'s as confused as I
am.

MR. MARSHALL: It was just replacing FTC with states. That\'s what the
motion was.

MS. ROOKER: Well \--

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: We were adding states to the previous motion that was
passed.

MS. ROOKER: I think we need to make sure that we are clear on what we
are saying here. Let\'s see if we can rephrase this.

MR. TAKEMURA: Can I just ask Scott to restate the previous motion, and
when you get to the point where it says FTC, replace it with state
commissions, or something like that and let\'s see what that sounds
like, because I think that \-- I\'m hopeful that that would solve the
issue.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. TAKEMURA: And then that would be the motion.

MR. MARSHALL: Okay. In developing a national do not call list, state
regulation would be uniform with \-- no, it\'s not going to work.

MS. ROOKER: Bob is reading from the comments. Can we perhaps phrase it
from the comments section, Bob, of the recommendations that you have?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: At Article 48, the notice says the Commission seeks
comments on whether \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: \-- and if so to what degree state requirements should
be preempted. It goes on to say that some courts have held that the TCPA
does not necessarily preempt less restrictive state laws on
telemarketing.

MS. ROOKER: Well, Paul had made the \-- Paul, you had stated that it
should preempt or supersede the state laws, right? Do we want to make it
that motion instead of the other?

MR. LUDWICK: That\'s a friendly amendment Andrea?

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Can we restate this? I think we\'re all a little
confused as to it. I\'m sorry. My brain has gone to sleep.

MR. MARSHALL: Federal Regulations preempt all state laws, is that what
you want to say?

MS. ROOKER: Then what we\'re going to do is make the recommendation that
the Federal Regulations pre-exempt or supersede state regulations, is
that what we\'re saying? The comment is \-- that is the comment and
that\'s what we\'re requested to comment on. Is there a consensus that
that\'s what we\'re doing?

MR. POEHLMAN: I think our concern is I think it\'s in the consumer\'s
best interest to make that statement. It might be a good idea to phrase
it in that term. I think there are a couple of issues here in this
motion, and it does tie closely to the previous motion.

Basically what we\'re looking at here is either uniformity in
implementation between, as best as can be achievable, between the
national do not call list implementation and the state regulations.

So the idea would be for the FCC to work with the states to insure that
when or if they do provide a national do not call list implementation
that it doesn\'t conflict in confusing ways that would be harmful to the
consumer or to positive business interests, you know. So that\'s what
we\'re trying to do, so I would say \--

MS. ROOKER: Is that a motion, David?

MR. POEHLMAN: Well, it\'s too long to be a motion.

MS. ROOKER: Well, Andrea, let\'s go back and take another shot at that.

MS. WILLIAMS: Let me take another shot at this. That the Federal
Regulations governing the national do not call list preempt inconsistent
state laws and regulations governing do not call lists.

So essentially, if the state law is consistent with the Federal law, not
a problem. If it\'s inconsistent with the Federal law, then the Federal
Rules should supersede or preempt.

MS. ROOKER: Susan.

MS. GRANT: Only because I have to go catch a plane. I could support
something that encouraged similar kinds of requirements. I can\'t
support preemption. If the committee ends up voting in favor of
preemption, then I need to record descent that that does not reflect the
position of the National Consumer\'s League, and I guess if you adopt
anything from this point on, I also \-- they may not also necessarily
reflect the position of the National Consumer\'s League. I\'m really
sorry that I have to go \--

MS. ROOKER: That\'s okay.

MS. GRANT: I thought we\'d finish this this morning, but \--

MS. ROOKER: Yes. Okay. Thank you, Susan. We appreciate your input.

Okay. Having said that, we\'re at the point now where Andrea has made a
motion that it preempt conflicting state regulations.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Shirley?

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Hi. This is Ken again. Yes, I would have to sort of
second what Susan said. I think that one of the real issues for
something like that for us is, you know, we generally strongly oppose
preemption of state laws.

For something like this where you do not yet know what the final rule is
going to be in terms of the FCC, there is no way that, you know, we
could support a motion that would say that it will preempt the state
laws because what if the FCC came out with something that was very weak.

So basically, I think in the absence of knowing sort of what\'s going to
be coming down in terms of the final decision, there\'s no way that I
could support this motion.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, maybe the wording \-- and Ken, maybe you can provide
some other words or I see Jeff down there, agree \-- basically the
concept that I\'m trying to get across is that we want to make sure that
all the rules are going to be consistent so that they can be
implemented, and consumers aren\'t left with trying to figure out, you
know, who has authority, who do I make my complaint to.

So if there\'s another way that it can be worded without preemption and
gets across the concept of consistency and uniformity, that\'s fine with
me.

MS. ROOKER: Jeff, do you want to take a shot at it?

MR. KRAMER: Well, I don\'t know. I thought we were closer when we
started and we were just talking about consistency because now, you
know, we have to voice our opposition to preemption as well.

I mean, I think if we\'re talking about consistency so that consumers
when they put their name on a list that everybody takes from the same
list so there\'s a consistency there, and so that states know how to
implement it and enforce it, I think we\'re on the same page.

But to say that the FCC should preempt these states, we\'d have to
oppose that. So I don\'t know if we could go back to where we were
talking about just consistency among \--

MS. ROOKER: Andrea it\'s \--

MR. KRAMER: \-- the implementation \--

MS. ROOKER: \-- your motion.

MR. KRAMER: \-- of this.

MS. ROOKER: What do you think? That there\'s consistency, do you want to
say that instead of preemption?

MS. WILLIAMS: Consistency and uniformity.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. KRAMER: Yes. I just \--

MS. ROOKER: Do you want to restate that?

MR. KRAMER: \-- because we can \-- well \--

MS. ROOKER: Okay. If we can restate that \-- we\'ve really got to move
on.

MR. KRAMER: Right.

MS. ROOKER: Can you restate that if that\'s your desire?

MS. WILLIAMS: Right, that the Federal Regulations and state regulations
are consistent and uniform.

MS. ROOKER: Okay is that \-- now we have a motion that says that they
are consistent and uniform. Is there \-- can we live with that?

MS. WILLIAMS: That Federal and state \--

MR. McELDOWNEY: Can you read the whole motion again?

MS. WILLIAMS: The Federal and state regulations governing the do not
call list are consistent and uniform with one another.

MR. McELDOWNEY: So you\'re basically saying we urge that or something
like that?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, that\'s fine.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We can say we urge that. Matt?

MR. BENNETT: I believe that we can give guidance to the FCC to say that
they should promote conformity with state laws. I don\'t think that we
can put words together that draw them to have to implement and maintain
conformity, but I think if the FCC is in a role of promoting conformity,
they won\'t overstep their jurisdiction.

MS. ROOKER: Isn\'t that what we just said?

MS. WILLIAMS: It\'s a wordsmithing thing.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. I think that\'s what we said. We will promote \-- do
you want to change that to we will promote. That the FCC promote.

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, there are some states that may not necessarily want
conformity with state laws.

MS. ROOKER: Because they may be weaker.

MS. WILLIAMS: They may be weaker, may be, you know, more detail, more
restricted. That\'s why I said consist \-- whatever they come up with,
just make sure it\'s consistent and uniform.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Can we accept that? Well, let\'s take a vote. We\'ve
got a motion on the table, and let\'s \-- we\'ve got to move on. I\'m
sorry. Andrea\'s motion \--

MR. MARSHALL: Do you want me to read what I wrote down?

MS. ROOKER: All right. Scott\'s going to read it back to us.

MR. MARSHALL: That the committee urges the FCC to promote that Federal
and state regulations are \--

MS. ROOKER: Take out promote.

MR. MARSHALL: Oh, I thought we just put it in there.

MS. ROOKER: Didn\'t we take out promote?

MR. BENNETT: No, we added promote.

MS. ROOKER: We added promote?

MR. BENNETT: Yes.

MR. MARSHALL: Right, okay. That the committee urges the FCC to promote
that Federal and state regulations are consistent and uniform.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. MARSHALL: We have to, you know, reword that, but that\'s basically
what it says.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right. We\'ve got a motion on the floor. Do I hear
a second?

MR. POEHLMAN: I second.

MS. ROOKER: I call for the vote. All for, aye.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Opposed?

(Chorus of noes.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We have some opposition. All right. Thank you very
much. The motion carries.

Now, let\'s go to \--

MR. KRAMER: Did somebody want to \-- reflect in the minutes.

MS. ROOKER: Well, we \-- I\'m not sure \-- well, because we did not say
the preemption business.

MS. WILLIAMS: No, we took the preemption out.

MS. ROOKER: I mean, some people are not agreeing even with that, but \--

MR. KRAMER: Okay. I just wondered if there was any dissent that needed
to be reflected.

MS. ROOKER: Is there decent that needs to be reflected, Jeff?

MR. KRAMER: Well, a point of order, I was ready to abstain on that
motion, and I didn\'t see a lot of hands either way.

MS. ROOKER: Well , that\'s true. Well, they were saying aye. I mean,
they did say aye. Some people put hands up. I called for a voice vote,
but I can call for a hand vote if you want me to.

MR. KRAMER: Yes, I\'d request it. Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, well then let\'s go back and do a \-- everybody who is
for the motion, put up their hand, please.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Against?

(Chorus of noes.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. The motion passes. Thank you. There are some other
issues that were brought up, one of the ones that you would like to see
us addressing. I know that one of the things that was brought up this
morning is about some companies calling and using a phone number on a
caller identity, caller ID, that is not a legitimate phone number that
you can\'t reach the company. Do we want to make some suggestions with
regard to that practice and that it be prohibited?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, Shirley. I would make such a motion. I guess one
thing I was confused about was that I would think that that would be
considered deceptive marketing, and I\'m not sure why action cannot be
taken against those companies absent some sort of final telemarketing
rule.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have anyone here who can answer that, that that is a
deceptive practice \-- I mean, I don\'t know the answer to that Ken.
It\'s a good point. Bob.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I don\'t know the answer to it either, but I would
suggest that if deceptive practices were indeed the case, quite possibly
the rules should be amended to increase the penalties for that type of
behavior.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Is that a motion, or what are we doing?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I would be happy to make a motion.

MS. ROOKER: All right.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: My motion is that in the event that deceptive practices
albeit where the person who claims that their rights have been violated
cannot seek to remedy a situation and because of the actions by the
person or entity that\'s created the situation, that the penalties be
increased for the use of such practices.

That was a long motion, but I started to think about it when I \-- well,
maybe I can cut it down a little.

MS. ROOKER: We were talking about the issue of the telemarketer
registering a number that\'s not a legitimate number.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: What if we were to just say something, request that the
FCC enforce, you know, in violations of the existing TCPA any kind of
deceptive actus under that which would include these kind of things.

MS. ROOKER: Which would include faxes?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Right.

MS. ROOKER: Unsolicited faxes.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: All these different things. Just a general that the FCC
enforces.

MR. SMITH: But you have that now.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Well, this is a recommendation to the \--

MS. ROOKER: That stronger enforcement?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes.

MR. SMITH: What are you going to do when that\'s not working?

MS. ROOKER: Stronger enforcement, would that be \--

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: And considering \--

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes, it\'s a violation, but you know, we don\'t see a
lot of enforcement actions in this area, so we could come forward and at
least put the Commission on record that we think they need to enforce
this.

MS. ROOKER: Matt.

MR. BENNETT: I thought what I heard from Bob\'s recommendation is the
FCC should stipulate penalties for deceptive practices.

MS. ROOKER: Increasing them, actually.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes.

MR. BENNETT: Well, \--

MS. ROOKER: Well, then maybe that\'s a better way of putting it. Do we
want to put that the FCC enforce and consider increasing the penalties
for deceptive practices?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Shirley, how about a motion like this: that the
committee urge the FCC to increase enforcement action of deceptive
practices such as a telemarketer, you know, using a deceptive, you know,
whatever it is, however you want to use it.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Identifier.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Identifier.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I mean, everyone get the idea of there should be more
enforcement for it, but specifically mention an area that was brought up
this morning. That would be my motion.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Bob, is that okay with you?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Well, just one comment.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I think that the entity that has created a problem is
subject to enforcement under the existing rules where the FCC can say
stop but that doesn\'t stop the deceptive practice. That\'s my point.

MS. ROOKER: And your point is that we need to make the penalties bigger
and enforce them.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: I\'m not sure that\'s in conflict with what Ken was saying.

MR. KRAMER: What Ken said was to increase oversight basically to put
more pressure.

MS. WILLIAMS: I mean, I take the word stronger enforcement could be
increased penalties, forfeitures, you know, if you have a license,
taking the license, you know, a number of things.

MS. ROOKER: Should we, then we could amend \--

MS. WILLIAMS: The reason why I want to stay away from increased
penalties, because I\'m not \-- I don\'t know the TCPA as well as maybe
some others here, and I don\'t know if the FCC has authority to increase
penalties.

MS. ROOKER: I see.

MR. KRAMER: Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. KRAMER: I believe Ken\'s motion the way it was originally stated it
meets the true intent of what we need to accomplish which is to know to
put the FCC on notice that they should look at doing additional
diligence on enforcement activities because it\'s obvious from the
comments in the room today that this practice is rampant and it\'s out
of control, and by putting more focus on enforcement they hopefully
would be able to get it under control.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. That\'s basically a restatement of what Ken said. Do
we accept it \--

MR. KRAMER: I believe \-- I think Ken\'s original statement for a motion
was the right way of phrasing it.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I withdraw my motion.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, Bob. Thank you. All right. Okay, then Ken\'s motion. Do
we need to restate the question? Do you want him to? Okay, Ken, would
you restate that for us, please?

MR. McELDOWNEY: That the committee urge the FCC to increase their
enforcement action on deceptive telemarketing practices specifically the
use of \-- for example, the use of \-- I forgot the word again already.

MS. WILLIAMS: Unsolicited.

MR. KRAMER: Unsolicited facts.

MS. ROOKER: No. You\'re talking about the use of a phoney phone number.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Phoney phone number, yes.

MS. ROOKER: In a telemarketing call.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: A phoney phone number. How do you like that.

MR. McELDOWNEY: That\'s a good \-- I like that. I like the technical
terms.

MS. ROOKER: It rings. It has rhythm. It\'s getting late in the day.
It\'s Friday. I\'m sorry. That was good, right. Back to serious
business.

MR. KRAMER: Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. KRAMER: Can I suggest phoney identification.

MS. ROOKER: Phoney identification, thank you very much, and false
identification. I still like the phoney. We\'ll substitute false
identification.

All right. The motion is on the table. Do I hear a second, please? All
right. It\'s been seconded. A voice vote. All in favor say, aye.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Opposed?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: All right. The motion has been approved and carried. Thank
you, Ken, for putting that before us. We\'ve got a few more minutes.
Where are we? We actually are at the point where I don\'t think we have
any more time to devote for this, but I do think that we\'ve come up
with some things that are useful and good.

Does anyone else have any other comments they can make in one minute?
Okay, if not, then I would like for us to move on and thank you all for
that. That\'s not easy.

Yes, Andrea.

MS. WILLIAMS: I just, for point of clarification, are we moving
Micaela\'s report to the next meeting?

MS. ROOKER: Well, actually we\'re going give Jim \-- he wants a minute
to talk a little bit about what they\'re doing. Yes, and then we will
have a full report from the committee when we meet again.

MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, okay.

MS. ROOKER: So, Jim, you wanted to give us a minute.

MR. TOBIAS: Yes, I just want to give the committee as a whole an update
on what\'s been going on. We\'ve had several working groups within the
disability subcommittee, and some of them have delivered something in
the way of a report, but it has not been fully circulated to the
disability subcommittee as a whole and certainly not to the committee as
a whole.

So I\'m reluctant to have them put forth at this meeting as
recommendations, but I\'m also concerned that if we have a large change
in membership that we\'ll have to start again from the beginning.

At this point, I do have to say that I\'m really quite disappointed in
how we have not been able to generate recommendations when literally in
the first two or three meetings we had really all the content that we
needed for recommendations to the Commission.

We\'ve added some value over the time without doubt, but I think our
time was not well spent in the last six to eight months in generating
that, so I don\'t know what the mechanism, if any, there is for taking
the current work product and moving it forward into the new committee,
but I would like to encourage either you as, you know, the lynch pin and
source of continuity of helping us make that transition.

MS. ROOKER: I think that\'s an excellent point. Also, I think it might
be useful for us to talk about how we can better facilitate in the
future in getting products out of the groups, and I think that would be
a useful perhaps independent discussion with us or ideas if you want to
e-mail me some thoughts on that too.

MR. TOBIAS: Sure.

MS. ROOKER: But yes, that will be something that we will do so that
we\'re not losing what\'s been done is to find out a way to do
transition. And I expect many of you will be on this subsequent
committee, so it may not be an issue. But anyway thank you, Jim, very
much.

MR. TOBIAS: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: And of course, we appreciate Micaela and we\'re sorry that
she\'s not with us, but we\'re happy for the reason.

Moving on, we\'re going to hear from Margaret Egler who is the Deputy
Bureau Chief of Policy under the CGB. Margaret, welcome, it\'s nice to
see you again.

MS. EGLER: I\'m actually going to hijack the meeting for a moment here,
Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. EGLER: So bear with me. First of all, this morning you got to meet
Tom Chandler officially who is the head of the Disability Rights Office.
Tom and Michelle who you also saw are the two division chiefs who report
to me, and it\'s a great pleasure to have that kind of talent working
for you because it certainly makes your life a lot easier and I\'m
always happy. I mean, they\'re just great people, and so I get to do
more miscellaneous stuff now like final review, so I\'m very happy about
that.

But before I talk about that in review, I just wanted to go back to this
morning. Pam Gregory did the introduction for Tom. I just want to take a
second and ask Pam to come up for a second. I want to give her
something.

Pam, as you know, has been sort of the continuity for the transition of
CIB to CGB and also from the disability task force, the disability
rights office. She was extremely patient with me when I took over this
job last year. She actually was called to my office any number of times
when I\'d have to say to her, so what does this mean, or how does this
work. And so she said, well, Margaret it\'s like this.

But she was always very very gracious, and I am just so happy that we
were able to work out a situation that she was going to be able to stay
that accommodates her needs and her desires and also keeps her in DRO
because she\'s an extremely important part of it.

So I just wanted to give you your own little \--

MS. GREGORY: Am I in trouble?

MS. EGLER: \-- certificate of appreciation. Pam, thank you very much,
and here\'s a little something for you to \--

(Applause.)

MS. GREGORY: Thank you very much.

MS. EGLER: And that\'s the first \--.

I don\'t have a certificate for you. You actually have to work now. I
think everybody knows this morning the D.C. Circuit threw out the video
description rules. What better way to say it, but they did.

So Tom, as his first official job of the Disability Rights Office Chief
will sort of give you a little highlight of what exactly the D.C.
Circuit opinion said.

Well, he\'s just going to give you the facts. We can\'t really tell you
anything about what the Commission\'s going to do about this because
obviously everyone upstairs is still digesting it, but just in case, I
know that the staff gave out copies, and this is just so in case you
didn\'t get a chance to read it. Tom will give you a little update. Go
ahead.

MR. CHANDLER: Well, when I said I hope to see all of you again soon, I
didn\'t really think that would be a matters of hours, although I\'m
happy to be back. And also I should say that I was tempted to take out
of my earlier remarks that reference to the pending video description
decision because I didn\'t think it would come down for a few months,
and so I guess I sort of jinxed the whole thing and therefore take
personal responsibility for this bad outcome even though I had nothing
to do with it. But it comes with the territory.

As most of you know, these rules involved video description which
required commercial TV broadcasters affiliated with the four largest
commercial networks, the big three networks and FOX to have 50 hours of
video descriptions per quarter on either prime time TV or children\'s
TV, and there were also other requirements on multichannel video
distributors. I\'m still learning all these long phrases.

The rules were adopted three to two by the Commission and were
challenged on appeal. And in only two months and two days, the Court has
struck them down unanimously. One judge did file a concurring opinion,
sort of a concurrent paragraph, on a narrow point but certainly agreed
with the results.

It\'s really a straight forward opinion, and for those of you who are
lawyers, as you know, you take a whole course in law school on
administrative law and it\'s all really \-- administrative law 101 which
is what are the powers that a Federal agency has to enact regulations.

Those powers, of course, come from Congress, and then there\'s interplay
between the language Congress has used in drafting the statutes, here
primarily 713 of the Telecom Act, and then the regs or the regulatory
action that follows based on Congress\' statutory authority.

So here the primary question was did Congress have the authority to
enact these regulations that came out in 2000. Specifically, did it have
that authority under 713 or 713(f) which is the part of 713 that deals
with video description. The other parts deal with closed captioning. So
the same provision dealt with both aspects of accessibility.

The Court said no, Section 713(f) did not give the Commission the power
to enact these regulations, and the thrust of the reasoning was that
although the part of 713 addressing closed captioning specifically
mandates that the Commission not only look into close captioning rules
but actually adopt some rules in a pretty good period of time, the reg
as to video description only says that the Commission should do a report
on video description.

So the Court\'s basic notion was that the rule itself mandated different
Commission action for closed caption than it did for video description,
and in one area it mandated rules and the other ones it only mandated
report.

And implicit in that, I suppose, is that if Congress had wanted there to
be regs for video description it would have said so since it said it in
the earlier part of the statute addressing closed captioning.

After that, the Court addressed really more elegant questions which is
that if 713 didn\'t give Congress the power to enact these regs, did
some other parts of the Telecom Act give them the power and specifically
looked at, I guess at our urging in our briefs, section 1 and section
4(i) of the Act.

Section 1 is just the general language about the purpose of the
Commission to extend telecommunications to all persons, etcetera, and
section 4(i) is I think what we call the necessary and proper clause.

The Court concluded that it was \"a very frail argument,\" for us to
rely on sections 1 and 4(i) to try to enact these regs particularly when
section 713 which specifically addressed this subject area didn\'t allow
for these regs in the video description side.

Where there was disagreement on the Court in the one dissent was the
question whether video description regs implicate program content. Two
of the judges thought they did and thought that because these rules
mandated program content that it therefore was beyond the scope of
section 1 because whatever sort of implicit or ancillary powers sections
1 and 4(i) may give the Commission, in the Court\'s view it certainly
didn\'t give the power to address content for, among other reasons,
First Amendment concerns that any regulation of content would implicate
the First Amendment and, in those places where Congress has addressed
First Amendment type matters in the telecom area, it has done so
explicitly with certain obscenity provisions and things like that.

It contrasted, obviously, closed captioning and video descriptions, and
said closed captioning does not involve content because it\'s just a
transcript of exactly or a precise repetition of what was said where
vide description involves someone coming up with a secondary script
describing what is going on with the picture.

You can buy that distinction or not, but unfortunately for us today, the
only opinion that matters is that of the majority of the judges who
thought it was content based therefore beyond the powers of section 1.

So in a nutshell, that is really it, and again, it\'s really just a
somewhat regrettably at least to simply it a straight forward analysis
of what Congress said the Commission can do in this subject matter in
the underlying statute 713 and distinguishing the treatment of closed
captioning from video description.

And then really the second part was saying if 713 didn\'t do it, you
also can\'t do it under these other statutes, section 1 and section
4(i). So the opinion does have the effect not only of throwing out the
video description rules, but for appellate lawyers and the legal people
around here, it\'s also possible that it has an effect on the scope of
the Commission\'s powers under sections 1 and 4(i).

But all of these matters are things that will have to be addressed as we
look at the opinion. We\'ve now had it for all of three hours or
something, but again, it\'s some irony that this happened to come out
right when I said we\'re looking at it and didn\'t expect it to come
out, but it\'s a predictive business and we\'re not always right.

MS. EGLER: We blame you.

MR. CHANDLER: And I\'ll take all the blame.

MR. KRAMER: Is there anything in the legislative history that would
speak to one side or the other?

MR. CHANDLER: Unfortunately, yes, and that was not helpful to us because
I believe the House report first required regs for both video
description and closed caption, then they amended the House report to
tone that down.

The Senate report specifically only had do a report, and the conference
committee adopted the Senate\'s view. But the opinion, interestingly,
did not really go into the legislative history too much at all except it
background.

It really relied just on the plain language of 713 and the different
treatment between closed captioning and video description. So to the
extent there was legislative history, it was not helpful, although the
Court didn\'t emphasize that.

This time I\'ll say I hope I see you all again soon.

MS. ROOKER: Bring us better news next time.

MR. CHANDLER: Hopefully next time, but maybe.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Tom. We appreciate your being here.

MS. EGLER: Okay. What I was actually supposed to talk about is what
I\'ll talk about now, and that\'s the biennial review. I have the PN
here somewhere. I got a little discombobulated while we were getting
things together for that little presentation. All right, well, we put
out this PN somewhere that\'s in my folder.

Okay. Basically, let me just give you a couple minutes on what the
biennial review is. Okay. Basically, as part of the \'96 Act, Congress
decided that they wanted to give the FCC a couple tools.

As you remember or as you\'ve probably heard us talk about the \'96 Act,
the \'96 Act was the biggest amendment ever to the Communications Act of
1934 and it was aimed at a lot of different things.

I\'ll just talk about where in telecom it was aimed in creating a
competitive market and not just in long distance which already had by
\'96 had happened but in the local arena. So there are all these rules
that you\'ve heard about having to do with facilities based carriers,
resellers, unbundled network elements, a lot of things that go on that
we created rules, a lot of which have been struck down, a lot of which
are on appeal. I mean, it\'s been a big area for litigation.

But basically, that was one of the \-- what Congress was trying to do
was sort of create a more competitive arena, and they gave the FCC some
pretty impressive tools to help sort of deregulate where that would be
helpful.

One of them was section 10, what is now section 10 of the Communications
Act which is forbearance, and that is if someone on the filing of a
petition for forbearance, we can forebear from enforcing a rule or
statute if it meets certain criteria.

The other is section 11 which is the biennial review requirement. That
is a very very short section, and mercifully very easy to understand.
It\'s just these two paragraphs that says that every other year, every
even numbered year, the Commission shall review all of its regulations
issued under the Act that have to do with telecommunications, serve any
operations or activities of any provider of telecommunication service
and shall determine whether that regulation is no longer necessary in
the public interest.

It\'s pretty straight forward, so the Commission did it in 1998. They
did a much larger review in 2000. We\'re still sort of getting used to
doing it and figuring out how to do it right.

What happened in September of this year is that we put out a whole slew
of public notices. Each bureau that has telecommunications
responsibility, and there are several of them, and the Consumer
Governmental Affairs Bureau is one of them because we do the disability
and the consumer issues.

Basically what you saw in this two-page public notice is we are asking
for comment to determine whether or not these regulations as required by
statute, whether or not these regulations are still necessary and are in
the public interest. Then we list all the regulations involved.

You\'ll see in the public notice is that we list what we call part 6 and
part 7 which are the rules that were established under 255 for
accessibility of telecommunications services and equipment and also
section 225, the TRS rules.

The TCPA rules are all up. The operator service rules, slamming rules,
everything we do having to do with telecom which is a huge amount of
rules are up for notice right now.

And I understand that there was some concern when that came out. People
thought for some reason we were, like, about to get rid of all our
consumer rules or about to get rid of our disability rules. It\'s simply
not the case.

This is just a tool given to the FCC by Congress to review the rules and
to sort of get rid of ones that are keeping \-- that are not in the
public interest, that may be old and archaic, that may not have any more
use of.

This ideally would then allow us to sort of streamline things and get
rid of rules instead of going through a whole rule making and finding
them no longer necessary. It gives the FCC another good option to sort
of make the rules better.

So it\'s not something anyone should be afraid of. Again, we have to do
it every two years now. We\'ll continue to do it every two years. If you
want to know what the comments are, go into the FCC\'s web site and go
to the ECFS which is the electronic common filing system and plug in the
docket number. Do you have a copy of it? What\'s the docket number?
It\'s 02265. That\'s our docket number. That\'s the CGB docket number,
and you\'ll see all the comments come in.

I looked at this actually last night, and at this point there are
between 40 and 50 comments filed. I did a quick review of them. Most of
them are from individuals asking us not to get rid of the TRS rules, so
\-- which is great. I mean, this is the kind of stuff \-- this is wide
open, so I put them out for comment.

You know, what\'s in the public interest? Obviously, if we get 800
comments people saying don\'t get rid of the TRS rules, there\'s a lot
of comments there saying that the TRS rules are in the public interest.

But basically, what section 11 and the biennial review is for us to
determine whether or not \-- we have to make the determination that a
rule was not in the public interest, and so we need evidence and that
sort of thing.

So if you have concerns about any of our rules, if you want to comment
on them, it\'s all wide open, and we are committed to doing this, of
course, by the end of the year, so it\'s a fairly quick comment cycle
and review period.

But that\'s basically all it is. It\'s every telecom rule that \-- I
mean, WCB has hundreds that they have to do \-- the wire line
competition bureau \-- that they have to do, and it\'s just something
that Congress requires us to do, and it gives us an opportunity to get
rid of rules that are no longer of any use.

Again, our rules aren\'t being picked on. Nobody\'s rules are being
picked on. It\'s just something that we\'re required to do, and if
you\'ve seen any of the prior biennial reviews, the 2000 one is a good
example where we used it as an opportunity to get rid of a couple sort
of just dumb stuff or it\'s also stuff.

It\'s also the 2000 biennial review was the order that created, well,
it\'s what lead to the informal complaints rule making that we started
in February which is still open and we\'re working on the report and
order as to whether our informal complaint process for common carrier
should be extended to non-common carriers like radio and TV and cable
operators.

So, it\'s a big opportunity for us to look at things, to streamline, to
make things better, and that\'s how we use section 11, and we\'d
certainly be happy if any of you wanted to comment on how we can make
any of our rules better or make them more in the public interest which
is our duty here at the FCC.

Does anyone have any questions? Go ahead.

MR. TOBIAS: I just have one question, and I\'m concerned that if someone
files a comment that says that the rule is not stringent enough or is
not accomplishing what it\'s intended and their suggestion is actually
to intensify the rule, could that somehow be misread as comment in favor
of eliminating the rule?

MS. EGLER: You know, it just depends. One comments isn\'t going to like
tear down an entire rule. Often what happens out of the biennial review
is that we get comments on how things should be changed or made better
not necessarily be gotten rid of, and those are the beginnings of other
rule makings.

So I think that\'s what you\'d see if we saw a sort of ground swell of
we desperately need this. If we didn\'t feel like we had enough notice
in the biennial review to do something, but it\'s not to get rid of but
to make better, that could be a basis, and there are several that
actually have gone that way, so.

Actually, it\'s a good thing if people \-- especially with the way we
have our common filing system now, everything\'s available. It\'s all on
the web, and for people to very easily get involved, let us know what
you think because it does allow us in the Consumer Bureau and all the
other bureaus to sort of see where people are and maybe what we\'re
missing in the big picture.

MS. BATTAT: I understand that this review is the first time that the
public has ever been involved in the review process before?

MS. EGLER: No, I mean, basically like I said, we\'ve been \-- I guess
we\'re trying to get it to where it\'s a good working process. The 1998
\-- the year 2000 \-- I wasn\'t involved in the 1998 review, but the
2000 review was what happened we did a staff report on all the rules and
then that was out for comments.

Anything we put out for comment, it\'s all put out for comment in the
same way. We put it out, and you can send comments to the secretary\'s
office. You can send it, and this is where we encourage and we\'re
trying to make the system better even as we speak.

The electronic comment filing system \-- because it\'s free \-- you
know, it\'s all free, but it\'s cheap and you just e-mail the stuff in
and that\'s where most of the comments that we\'ve gotten are in that.

We also noticed that somebody did a form letter sort of explaining how
important TRS is and then put a lot of different people\'s names on it,
so I mean, so we saw a lot of the forms which is, you know, fine.

We get that a lot of the rule making. Somebody has something they really
want said, and then they get a lot of different people to send the exact
same comment or exact same letter. But you know, it\'s all open. We read
all of them.

Anybody else? That comment period has closed. Replies I think are
closing today or it\'s about to close. But if you\'re interested, again,
the Commission \-- this is always an expedited process. It\'s always a
fast rule making, but if you\'re interested, go into the ECFS and check
out the comments we have on this 20-265.

Sorry. The docket number is 02-311. That\'s the CGB\'s docket number on
this. Just plug that into the ECSF. you can see, and if you want to send
one, it\'s a late filed comment, but what we tell everybody is that we
always like the best and fullest record, so you can send in a late filed
comment or an ex parte, and they always get read.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have other questions for Margaret? Well, Margaret,
thank you again for being with us. It\'s nice to see you. Thank you.

Okay, moving right along here, we\'re going to get an update on the
complaints and outreach committee report which as you know our group
prepared on the 28th of June in our June meeting, and we are delighted
to have Thomas Wyatt who is the Deputy Bureau Chief for Inquiries and
Complaints. Welcome, Thomas.

MR. WYATT: Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I\'m happy to be back to
talk about the consumer inquiries and complaints process, and what I\'d
like to do is spend my time this afternoon briefly describing the \--
well, briefly addressing some of the issues that arose out the June 28
meeting. And we\'ll be happy to address any additional questions you
might have.

One of your questions had to do with the distinction between the
consumer inquiries and complaints process. As you know, our consumer
centers handle a lot of consumer contacts, and we recognize that
sometimes the distinction between what is an inquiry and a complaint is
sometimes blurry, but it\'s an important distinction and one I really
want to try to clarify today. It\'s important to consumers. It\'s
important to regulated companies, and it\'s important to us. And I\'m
going to tell a story in a couple of minutes to put it into maybe a
better context for you.

Some of you may have noticed that in our quarterly reports that we issue
on complaints and inquiries we included a definition of inquiry and
complaint. I\'d like to show you a slide now, and I believe the slide is
also available in your packets. I believe we have real copy of the
slides as well, but you\'ll be able to take a look of the slide. Now,
these are the definitions that we use in the quarterly reports.

Basically an inquiry is defined as any correspondence or communication
sent at our consumer centers from an individual seeking information
about matters under the FCC\'s jurisdiction.

The informal complaint definition is defined in the report as any
correspondence or communication received at the consumer centers via
postal mail, fax, e-mail, or telephone from or on behalf of an
individual that, one, identifies a particular entity under the FCC\'s
jurisdiction, alleges harm or injury, and seeks relief.

Now, I\'d like to show you an actual experience that we had with a
consumer contact to put this into proper context for you. A while ago,
we received a letter from a consumer. That letter went into considerable
detail about a problem the consumer was experiencing with a telecom
service provider.

She even went so far as to attach a bill which listed some charges that
she thought was outrageous and way out of hand. She also included in her
letter, however, a note that she wanted information about her options
and her rights with respect to this carrier, and she was very specific
in that request.

Shortly after we received the letter, she phoned us and asked about her
letter. We pulled her letter up and discussed it with her, and she
reiterated that she wanted to know her rights and her options for
addressing this with the carrier. Those were explained to her including
the right to contact the company directly to try to resolve it.

In a very short amount of time, we took her letter and we actually
forwarded her letter to the company involved. Now, it couldn\'t have
been more than five days, and during that time \-- about the same time,
she also contacted the carrier.

The carrier said to her, well, we have a complaint notice from the FCC.
We\'ve escalated it to our attorney. We can\'t talk to you. What we had
done, we had put that consumer in an adversarial position with that
company, something that she had not requested and did not want.

She clearly wanted information about how to proceed and how to resolve
it, and because her letter was so specific in terms of the problems she
was having with the company, the criteria was used for a complaint but
for the fact that she didn\'t want it treated as a complaint.

But we had managed to put her in an adversarial position with that
company. And she was upset with us to learn that the company would not
deal with her on a one-on-one basis until they had discussed it with
their attorneys and responded officially to the FCC complaint.

Now, that is not the goal of the consumer complaint process. Our goal is
to really provide information to consumers. So if a consumer contacts
us, we try to drill down as best we can to figure out what it is the
consumer wants or needs from us or from the companies. To the extent
that we can provide assistance in filing a complaint, we\'ll certainly
do that.

I want to put a slide up now that will describe the flow chart for
consumer complaint. It will give you a good idea of how the complaint
process works. Now, you\'ll notice that again our consumer citizenry
will receive the contact to be a toll free call, voice or TTY. It could
be e-mail. It could be postal mail. It could be a fax. That contact is
logged into our tracking system.

We had some discussion earlier today about how we track complaints and
inquiries, and we really put a lot of emphasis in recent months on
better tracking inquiries and complaints. So we have a tracking system
set up so that our representatives can pretty readily start tracking
that inquiry or complaint from the very beginning.

Of course, we have to evaluate the content and jurisdiction of the
complaint. If there\'s something that\'s not within our jurisdiction,
you\'ll see the box over to the right that our goal is to provide
additional information or refer the matter to another state or Federal
agency for that matter.

In some cases, if the content is not specific enough to warrant treating
it as a complaint, we will refer the matter to the enforcement bureau
for their review because sometimes it might be relevant to some matter
that they\'re undertaking or that they\'re considering over in their
shop.

But assuming that the jurisdiction is okay, then we forward the
complaint if the consumer wants it treated as a complaint to the company
involved. The companies are given up to 30 days to respond. Well, when I
say respond, they\'re given 30 days to satisfy the complaint or respond
to the allegations. I can tell you from experience that most companies
tend to try to resolve it rather than respond in detail to the
allegations.

So what happens next? Well, is the complainant satisfied? If the answer
is no, as you see over to the left, we have staff trained to try to
mediate on behalf of the consumer.

We put a lot of emphasis on really trying to understand the consumer\'s
problem and providing the consumer reps with the tools to really engage
the companies and try to get a resolution satisfactory to the consumer.
We might even require the company to provide additional information.

Often times, the company\'s response might be a little vague or it may
not address a specific issue raised in the complaint. So I\'ll go there
as to obtain additional information from the company so that you can
evaluate whether we need to do anything else with the complaint.

Of course, we\'ll advise the consumer of any other options he or she may
have including the right to file a formal complaint setting out in more
detail what the specific allegations are.

When the complaint is satisfied, well, usually the complaint is closed.
If we have an indication from the company\'s response and our
communications with the consumer that the consumer is happy with the
company\'s response to the complaint, we\'ll close it.

That doesn\'t mean that the company is off the hook necessarily because
we do work very closely with the enforcement bureau. We share
information with them, and if the number of complaints about a
particular company indicates a pattern of practice that warrants some
kind of intervention on their part, you know, that company could face
that action.

So we are very corrective in sharing information with the enforcement
bureau so that we can identify patterns of practices that might require
or warrant some kind of enforcement action.

So I think that\'s a very important thing to remember about the informal
complaint process, that it\'s really geared towards facilitating
resolution for the consumer.

We don\'t typically issue written decisions or rulings on an informal
complaint. There\'s only one informal complaint context in which we
actually are required to issue written orders. That is in the slamming
context and there\'s a very discrete set of rules for slamming
complaints, and orders are issued in those complaints.

But all of the informal complaints, the process is not really geared
towards bringing decisions. We really try to facilitate a resolution for
the consumer. And to the extent that the consumer\'s not satisfied with
the carrier\'s response, or I should say the company\'s response because
we certainly \-- the process involves a lot more than just carriers. But
to the extent that the consumer\'s not happy, we want to make sure they
know their rights and their options as for pursuing the matter.

So the processes work well we think because we\'ve done some informal
studies that show that the majority of the complaints that we receive
and forward to the companies are resolved to the satisfaction of the
consumer which I think is exactly what the process is designed to
accomplish, some kind of resolution that will benefit and help the
consumer.

I know that I still get questions about, well, inquiry, complaint, what
is the real difference. Hopefully I\'ve explained it some because it is
an important distinction.

We try not to put consumers in an adversarial position when they don\'t
want to be, but at the same time we want to make sure that we
communicate pretty clearly to the companies when consumers bring issues
and concerns to our attention. So we really try to make sure what the
consumers are either calling about, writing about, so that we can take
the appropriate action.

So I know there was a question at the last meeting about the kinds of
training that the representatives receive as far as consumer complaints
and inquiries. We spend a great deal of time trying to educate and train
our staff to really respond appropriately to inquiries, and they run the
gambit.

We get some fairly complex inquiries that require quite a bit of effort
to get the bottom of and try to answer on behalf of consumers. Other
times we get complaints that, frankly, are really not suitable for
resolution in the informal complaint context. They really require some
more formal adjudication. If that\'s what the consumer is looking for, a
decision on the merits, it really requires something more formal.

So we try to educate consumers about the formal complaint process to
make it clear that they have that option and also help them understand
that they have the right to ask for waivers of certain informal
complaint rules if they feel that the formal complaint process is an
impediment to actually bringing a complaint.

So the process is really geared towards benefitting and helping
consumers, and that\'s where we really put our efforts. And we\'ll
continue to do that. We\'re always looking for ways to make it work
better.

To the extent that the committee has recommendations, we would welcome
those. I know that there have been questions about the complaint and
inquiry reports, and again I would reiterate that we would always
welcome suggestions about how to make the report more useable for
consumers and for the companies.

So I would really encourage you to share with us if you have
recommendations about the reports or about the process that we can
consider and incorporate. So with that, I\'ll step back and take any
questions you might have about the process.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Hi. Nanci Linke-Ellis. I have one question about the
complaint process. The diagram is gone. When the complaint is \-- oh
here. When you get to the box that says \"complaint satisfied,\" does
the FCC follow up with the complainant or is the complainant responsible
for coming back and saying no I\'m not satisfied?

MR. WYATT: Our goal is to follow-up with the consumer because we don\'t
want to accept the representation by the company that it\'s satisfied
because we\'ve learned, I think the hard way in some cases, that what
the company\'s take on what the discussion was with the consumers is a
little different than the consumer\'s take, so that\'s the case
sometimes.

So we try to follow-up with the consumer to confirm that they\'re
satisfied with the resolution and make sure they know they have the
right to pursue the matter further if they don\'t like the resolution or
don\'t like how the Commission handled the complaint.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: How long does it take for you to contact the
complainant once the company has come back with their resolution or I
mean their explanation. I\'m really referring to a specific case that
involved KDKA that some of my fellow deaf and hard of hearing people are
familiar with.

It had to do with emergency closed captioning in I think it was
Harrisburg, PA, and a complaint was filed \-- was it Pittsburgh? Okay.

They filed a complaint and they went through the whole process, and the
FCC notified the station and sent a copy of the rules. At that point,
all it said was, you know, they sent a letter of apology with regret and
they cited it as human error, and that was it.

There was no explanation as to what the human error was. There was no
explanation as to whether they were going to change captioners, or they
were going to oversee it, or what the station was going to do.

And in hearing about this in a captioning meeting, our question was,
well, what did the FCC do then. I mean, what was the next \-- what
happened?

MR. WYATT: I\'m not specifically familiar with that specific case,
although I will look into it. But I can tell you the general practices
are to try to get back to the consumer very quickly especially in a
situation that implicates some public health or safety concern.

The goal is to get back to the consumer within 10 to 20 days, but you
have to also understand that in some cases the staff is evaluating that
response to determine whether it will take some additional action so the
consumer may not \-- that process may take longer than 10 or 20 days.

We may be coordinating with the disability rights office about the
matter, about the response. We may be coordinating with the enforcement
bureau, so we may not know exactly what the next step is in that 10 to
20 day period, but the goal is to get back to the consumer and give them
a status.

Frankly we\'re looking at ways to streamline the process so that we can
keep the consumer better updated about the process so they don\'t wonder
about what the Commission\'s going to do next. So that is one of our
principle goals in the coming months to make that process more
streamlined and more predictable for consumers.

MS. ROOKER: Claude.

MR. STOUT: Hi. I\'m Claude Stout. When I\'m looking at your diagram, the
one that\'s shown on the Power Point slide, it really looks great and it
makes perfect sense. It also shows how it works and how the complaint
process works and what place people go to, and when one situation
happens how you gather information and so forth. I think it\'s a great
idea.

Now, the issue is does the FCC made this procedure, is it working from
now on, and then can you help increase our customer\'s confidence in it?
If you remember, I don\'t know if you were here last July\'s meeting but
before agents from your office were processing a response, and they got
the person\'s complaint regarding captioning that was sent \-- a fax
sheet. That was it.

And that person didn\'t know where that fax sheet came or where the
error occurred. The person couldn\'t learn anything more other than that
from when they ran a fax sheet. That person wasn\'t capable of
understanding.

But what your diagram says, this is what you should inform and send out
to people when they make the complaint because then they can clearly see
what the FCC is doing and they can provide more information to you
because they understand the process more clearly. It helps the customer
understand what exactly is going on. So maybe you want to include this.

So when you are talking about the procedure, it\'s nice to have them
understand it first so that they can fully take part in it. Because of
what I\'m hearing from you, I\'m hoping that you could put this, even a
copy of it because it seems like a successful process, and if consumers
know, then I think it would also be affective.

MR. WYATT: Okay. I think that\'s an excellent suggestion, and what
frankly I am working on, I\'d like to see this \-- assuming that
everybody in my office agrees that it\'s helpful, then that \-- and I
like to hear from others here as well whether you think this is
something that would be beneficial to consumers and, based on what
Claude said, it sounds like it could be very beneficial.

So my goal is to have on our website and in our other publications some
information that better explains the process and what consumers can
expect. And I think it\'s important for consumers to really understand
how the process is designed, what it\'s designed to accomplish.

We\'re really not geared towards producing decisions on the merits.
It\'s really geared towards helping consumers problems they have with
companies, and that\'s where the bulk of our resources are devoted.

But we do share information with the enforcement bureau which has the
enforcement responsibilities for the Commission. To the extent that we
do get complaints that require some enforcement action, we try to get
those over to the enforcement bureau as quickly as possible so that they
can decide whether some action is appropriate.

But yes, I agree Claude. To the extent that we can better explain the
process for consumers, that serves everybody\'s interest. It serves the
company\'s interest as well, because maybe it will mean that they\'ll be
more often put in a customer service role than an adversarial role with
the consumer. I think they prefer to be in a customer service
relationship with the consumer as opposed to an adversarial role that
we\'ve launched through our complaint process.

MS. ROOKER: Brenda.

MS. BATTAT: I have a question about a complaint filed under 255. If a
complaint is not resolvable in terms of finding an accessible product,
does the FCC go through the process with the company of finding out what
process, in fact, do they have in place for designing their product to
see \-- what I\'m thinking of is to push or move access forward. Are we
building any kind of data as to what is happening in the companies, what
kind of processes they have, what is working, what isn\'t working, and
where the stumbling blocks are. Is anything like that happening?

MR. WYATT: I can\'t tell you that. When we receive an informal complaint
about an accessibility barrier, we take it very seriously, and we engage
the disability rights office in that process right away so that we can
be poised to ask the right questions of the companies.

We also engage the enforcement bureau because, frankly, the 255 standard
as you know is a pretty demanding standard, a very achievable standard,
and determining whether an accessibility feature is readily achievable
is a fairly complex process and it doesn\'t really lend itself to an
informal complaint process.

But we do, when we receive informal consumer complaints, we will \-- we
take them very seriously. We serve them. We view the company\'s
response. If there are questions that are not answered, we coordinate
that with the disabilities rights office. We fashion additional
questions. We bring companies in.

I can tell you that often times we\'ll bring the company in to hear from
them first hand about what they\'re doing or what they haven\'t done to
really try to get to the bottom of the issue. But yes, there is a
concerted effort to really try to extract information from the companies
about accessibility barriers.

You mentioned whether we\'re collecting any data, I mean we\'re not \--
other than tracking the complaints, we\'re not really compiling any
specific data about how the companies are responding, but you know,
again, we\'re closely monitoring those responses, and we do call
companies in when we need to get additional information, but at this
point we\'re not really tracking in any public way what the companies
are saying in response to the inquiries or the complaints.

I don\'t know if that answered your question or not.

MS. ROOKER: We have a question from the floor back here.

MS. ENSTRAW: Hello, my name is Alison Enstraw. I\'ve been following
what\'s been happening here, and before I filed a complaint to the FCC
regarding my cable company. They were not providing captioned programs.

I asked Jennifer Simpson, I talked to her in the complaint department,
and she investigated the legal issues with the cable company, however,
she went above and beyond the call of duty by giving me some guidance as
to who to contact for special individuals in my county and also to make
it very effective how to file a complaint or to make an appeal within my
county.

What I learned was a lot from Jennifer. It was Jennifer Simpson, and I
didn\'t know that much information. I really felt helpful. My county
apparently had a franchise committee that dealt with cable industry, and
I learned so much through that process. And they were ordered, that is
the cable company, to provide captioning programming.

So if you could maybe set up a system that would be more helpful by
giving guidance to the consumer because consumers often really don\'t
understand the system and how it works and how it works within their own
community. So thank you very much.

MR. WYATT: Thank you for those comments, and I can tell you that we are
doing something along that line. We are in the process of updating our
fax sheets that explain the consumer complaint process, and hopefully
that will be something that will be very beneficial to consumers.

I really want to get the information on our website as well so the
consumers can go in and have a real good appreciate for how the process
works, what they can expect from it, and just how to use it. So we\'ll
continue to try to find ways to make sure that consumers know about the
process, and understand it, and use it.

MS. ROOKER: Yes, Judith.

MS. HARKINS: On the chart \-- and I agree with Claude. This is going to
be helpful to people to understand what to expect. In the box that says
was the complaint satisfied, and it says if it was satisfied the
complaint is closed and it may be subject to further review for
enforcement action.

If the complaint was not satisfied, there\'s no indication that it\'s
subject to review for enforcement action, and I would say that the
distance for an everyday consumer. We need something that is
intermediary so there can be some kind of intermediary step that the
agency would make.

So one thing to do, I think, would be to make it clear that if it is not
resolved that it is also for enforcement action, and I would imagine
that the committee, the new committee, would like to see some tracking
of the unresolved ones.

You said that more than half were satisfied. The complainant was
satisfied, but that means that close to half were not. So that\'s where
we\'re kind of \-- we\'ll keep coming back and needling you about the
ones that weren\'t because that we might want to see a little more
proactive, you know, maybe a rule making or something like that.

MR. WYATT: Just to clarify, I want to \-- because I think that\'s an
important point, and I do want to clarify that we\'re talking about a
little over 70 percent satisfied which is still, you know, that
remaining 20 some odd percent, that\'s still important to us, but the
success rate is right around a little over 70 percent. That again,
that\'s an informal study that we\'ve done.

But you made some very good points about the box. I certainly didn\'t
mean to indicate that complaints that are not satisfied are not subject
to further possible enforcement action because they are.

That\'s part of the discussion that we have with the consumer when we
mediate and with the company. So we try to make sure that companies
understand that we have an obligation to really enforce the Commission
\-- well, when I say we, I mean the Commission has an obligation to
enforce the rules and requirements on the books and that our goal is to
get to the bottom of the complaint. And if we need to share information
with the enforcement bureau, we will. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We have one more question. I think Al Sorinson has
another question or a follow-up, and he\'s behind the post.

MR. SORINSON: When you were talking about how the FCC works within your
commission, that\'s fine. But what is missing is what you send me. I
need information regarding my point in my county telling me who I should
contact within my own county. That would help me a lot.

It would be nice if you could go ahead and go beyond the call of duty by
providing complainants with more information that pertains to their
specific area not just within FCC. Thanks.

MR. WYATT: Another good point, and you mentioned Jennifer Simpson.
Jennifer Simpson does work in the consumer inquiries and complaints
division. She\'s been wonderful in terms of responding to questions
about the process and helping to facilitate some kind of resolution of
complaints.

Frankly, we\'re trying to get more people up to Jennifer\'s level, so to
speak, because I mean she\'s been very instrumental in helping us, and
we really want to develop more expertise in the division along the line.

So we\'re putting a lot of emphasis on training. Jennifer assists with
that on a daily basis. We really wanted to have a team of people in the
consumer center that can provide the kind of support and information
that Mr. Sorinson just described. So another very good point. So thank
you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much, Thomas. We really appreciated having
you.

To follow up on the complaints and outreach committee report is Irshad
Abdal-Hagg who is the consumer attorney advisor to the consumer affairs
and outreach division. Welcome. It\'s nice to have you with us.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Thank you very much. It\'s so late in the afternoon, I
think I\'m next to the last presenter, and I\'m just thrilled that
there\'s still an audience.

I once had to present at one of these all day things and I was next to
last, and after each speaker, there were fewer and fewer people in the
audience until we got down to my turn to speak, and there was only one
person left. I made my speech, and he clapped his hands, and I thanked
him for waiting to listen to my presentation. He said, \"I wasn\'t
waiting to listen to your presentation. I\'m the next speaker.\" So even
though I\'m next to last again, I\'m glad to see that there are so many
people here.

My name is Irshad Abdal-Haqq, and I\'m an attorney advisor in the
consumer affairs and outreach division which is a part of CGB, and I
just want to share some information with you about what we do, how and
why we do it, and perhaps how you might be able to help us out.

The head of our division is Martha Contee, and she made a presentation
before you at the last general meeting in, I believe it was in, June.
She talked about consumer scams. Scams that were being perpetrated on
consumers, telecommunications related scams.

At the end of her presentation \-- I\'m just going to paraphrase what
she said. At the end of her presentation, she said that consumer
education is the key. It doesn\'t matter how many rules we have, unless
we have consumer education, we aren\'t going to win this game.

So the best consumer protection is education and awareness, and this is
what our goal is in this bureau. That is my goal in this division, and
she\'s going to work very hard on that. And I would like to continue in
that vein.

Even though she was relating to you scams that result in many
complaints, our job in the consumer affairs and outreach division is to
try to educate the consumer to inform the consumer so that they aren\'t
taken advantage of, and if they are, what they can do about it.

Organizationally, our division is under the immediate supervision of the
deputy bureau chief for consumer affairs. Presently, Kris Monteith who
addressed you this morning is acting in that position as well as heading
the intergovernmental affairs office.

Generally, the consumer affairs and outreach division is mandated to
develop and implement consumer outreach and educational policies, goals
and objectives and to insure that the Commission has the benefit of a
wide spectrum of information and view points in its decision making
processes.

We also plan, develop and conduct consumer outreach and education
initiatives to educate the public about important Commission regulatory
programs and other aspects of the Commission\'s activities.

Specifically, we do the following things: we co-sponsor and sometimes we
sponsor national consumer forums, and we call these beyond the beltway
forums. The most recent one that we were involved in was the one that
the intergovernmental affairs office had it but we supported, and that
was the emerging economies in Indian country. We helped to staff a booth
to provide information to consumers. We went out there and we did a lot
of the logistical work.

The other thing that we do is \-- and we haven\'t had many of those. In
past years we have, before the reorganization, we did a couple of other
Indian related forums that we participated in. And we are hoping to do
more in the future.

Locally, we also have a local outreach program where we will actually go
out to community centers, to social organizations and other
organizations such as AARP. We\'re looking to perhaps do things in the
school systems.

We want to reach children and youth, and we share information with those
populations about telecommunications in hopes of not only educating them
and informing them but helping them to protect themselves from being
victimized as well.

We participate in and develop special initiatives, and this is something
that you might be particularly interested in, such as Get Connected
where we make massive mailings. We send information to people across the
country, to organizations, to PUCs that share the information with their
constituency as to how to get connected to basic telephone service.

We had a calling home initiative where we mailed information to various
military units so that those enlisted people, soldiers and others
serving the military, would understand what their options are when
they\'re calling home and when they\'re making international calls,
etcetera. We\'re considering a special initiative for DTV so that people
could better understand that.

Also, we provide media relations support. We have a professional media
relations person on staff, and a part of his job is to help to prepare
to do advance work, that is if the bureau chief or one of the
commissioners are going somewhere and he\'s going to make a speech or
going to appear on TV, then we might participate in helping to
facilitate that activity either by helping to arrange for the interview,
and sometimes we also review the speeches or portions of the speeches
for that individual.

We provide disability support services. Two of our staff people provide
sign language interpretation on an ongoing basis all the time and also
provide braille transcriptions. Those people are in the room right now,
and we provide that type of support.

The other thing we do is we develop outreach materials in cooperation
with the consumer publications branch. That is, the fact sheets, alerts,
booklets, pamphlets, all of those things we help to develop, and our
publications branch will actually do the formatting and arrange to have
them printed. But we participate in some of the writing and
organization.

Right now, the head of that office, the publications branch, is Stacy
Mesa. We have about 90 fact sheets and alerts now that are still in
publication. All of them are being translated into Spanish, and we have
about 10 booklets and brochures.

Next, we are attempting to partner with other agencies, Federal and non
Federal, in mutual outreach concerns, you know, ways that we can get to
consumers to share information with them and to encourage public
participation and to inform the public.

So we have a full plate. We have a lot of activity. We help to set up
the C/DTAC meetings. You know, our division is the one that does this
thing. You know, so we\'re always busy.

If there are any special events in the building, even if they\'re not
related necessarily to our bureau, we participate in helping to set that
up. We do a lot of the logistical work.

Those are the things that we are supposed to do. Those are the things
that we are hoping to do more of in the coming year, and I just want to
tell you about a few things that we\'ve done in the past year.

In addition to the C/DTAC meetings and helping to facilitate those and
working with Scott Marshall who is a part of our bureau, we attended a
public service appreciation week which is held every year here in
Washington. We set up a booth, and we shared information with the
general public and handed out fact sheets and alerts regarding
telecommunications related issues.

We did the same thing recently in October at a public utilities discount
day which was held here in Washington. The local Washington PUC is
called the office of people\'s counsel, and as far as we can tell, it\'s
the only one that hosts this public utilities discount day which is
orientated for poor people.

You have all of these low income people who come in and don\'t know that
they have access to the telephone service through our Get Connected
program, and hundred of people came. So many came in, we ran out of
materials.

The staff had to call back, and we were literally running around
gathering materials and shipping them over to the convention center
because there were all of these people who needed this information, and
I think it probably is needed all across the country.

If we can get into some kind of relationship with some of the other PUCs
and convince them to hold the same type of affair, then I think it would
be very successful in the way of facilitating outreach.

We participated in an energy expo day and, of course, the national
summit on emerging tribal economies which I mentioned earlier. We
partnered with our intergovernmental affairs office in that activity.

We also attended an AARP convention in San Diego and hosted a booth
there last September, and we shared information with the general public.

Today, a group of students from Hollan\'s College came in. They\'re
undergraduate students taking a telecommunications course, and they
wanted to know what we do and why we do certain things, and we brought
those students in and took them on a tour.

They had a brown bag lunch and met with some of the higher officials on
the eighth floor. They don\'t allow me to go up there because I get nose
bleeds. They had a great time. I went in for a part of it, and they were
grilling some of the technical staff here on DTV, why do we need digital
television, you know. It costs too much. What\'s so great about it?

They were going on and on, and I learned so much about what the average
consumer would ask just from the 10 minutes I spent there, and it should
help us tremendously in our outreach effort as we shape our DTV
outreach.

We\'ve done a lot of other things. I don\'t want to bore you with all of
these things that we\'ve done, but they\'re all related to the things I
mentioned earlier.

In addition, we found out that the most popular publications we have
when we go out are those related to get connected, cramming and
slamming, unwanted telemarketing calls, understanding the phone bill,
and we have a general booklet that tells you about the FCC.

Those are the types of publications that people ask for and they go for
when we go out on these forums. Sometimes we might have 20 different
types of handouts, but those are the ones that people seem most
interested in.

As I said, in the coming year we want to continue in this effort and to
expand it. We\'re a new bureau. We\'ve only been around for \-- I mean,
I\'m sorry, a new division. We\'ve only been around for a year or so
even though the bureau itself did conduct some outreach activities in
the past.

Now we\'re actually \-- we\'ve shown a commitment to doing this, and
this is, I think, a credit to the head of the bureau. I\'ve talked to
people at FTC, and they send out maybe 10 times as much material as we
do.

I said, well, do you hold forums? Do you co-sponsor forums where you go
and talk to the public and explain these things to them. They say no, we
don\'t have the budget for it. The only thing we do if someone else is
having something, then we\'ll go there and staff a booth for a day or
so, but that\'s all that we can do. And that is supposed to be the
consumer agency.

So I think that we really have shown a great commitment to helping
consumers, and I would request that what we could benefit from a
committee like yours is that your share your concerns and suggestions
with us as to how to evaluate the quality of our outreach, how to
develop, and what types of new outreach techniques we may use, and
helping us in figure out ways of encouraging more public involvement in
the FCC decision making process. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you much. We have a few minutes for questions. Claude.

MR. STOUT: I\'d like to thank you for what you\'ve done. I need to make
sure if I understand you right. When you talk about the resources and
abilities at the FCC, are they greater than at the FTC? Is that what you
were saying?

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes. We\'re hoping so. Our budget, as you know, we\'re
still operating on a continuing resolution, and we won\'t know what type
of resources, financial resources, we have available to us until later
this year. However, as far as staff is concerned, we certainly have more
resources committed to consumer outreach.

MR. STOUT: I guess I\'d like to add one thought. As you made your
comments, it was more of, I guess, a more isolated effort as locally.
You know, the local effort you\'re talking about.

Well, you go to some national meetings and you help there like Indian
affairs or you went out to Arizona. That\'s really great, but I\'m
trying to see about how with your limited resources you can make a
better impact like public service announcements. I mean, that could go a
long way reaching many more than 50 people. You could reach thousands of
people.

If you had public service announcements on television, you\'d be
educating more people about their rights, about what they don\'t realize
they can do, and you could talk to them about the complaint process and
they could experience it for themselves.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly. In fact, I didn\'t
go into the details of our media relations outreach effort, but a part
of that plan is to develop the type of tools that you\'re talking about.

A part of it would depend on what kind of funding is available. We\'re
committed to the concept, but we\'re just not sure what funding would be
available to actually carry that out, but it is a part of our plan.

MR. STOUT: I\'d like to suggest that the FCC push to increase the
budget. You know, you can ask Congress for more money.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Amen.

MR. STOUT: And it could go through Department of Treasury. If you start
pushing to increase your budget in the area of advertising, let\'s say,
or more staff, more money for the public service announcements. I mean,
you have consumers here. We could go to Congress and push them for you
to help support your actions.

And probably you can\'t do this alone. I mean, we know what works, and
we know how we can advise you and how we can go to Congress and lobby
for you. And we could say they keep telling us their resources are
limited, please give them a greater budget because we\'d like to see
them do more advertising, more announcements, more education.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes, I support that, and I\'m sure that the Commission
would \-- the challenge whenever you ask for more money is what I hinted
at at the end of my presentation, and that is to demonstrate that the
quality of your outreach is worth the money that\'s being spent. And if
there are ways that you can help us to figure out how to measure
qualitatively the effectiveness of our outreach, I would appreciate any
ideas in that area.

MS. ROOKER: Bob.

MR. SEGALMAN: Some mistakes have not been able to afford to produce
flyers on some of the TRS services. It would be very helpful if we could
have a national flyer on each TRS service. Would that be possible?

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: It\'s certainly something that we can consider, and I
will take it under consideration and discuss it with the staff.

MS. ROOKER: Well, thank you so much. Do we have one more comment? Al.

MR. SORINSON: While we\'re on the subject of outreach programs, I do
have some issues that I don\'t know whether it\'s within the FCC\'s
purview or jurisdiction, but for example, PBX System, that is within
each user\'s jurisdiction within FCC jurisdiction. Many of them are not
programmed recognizing 711. As a result, people within the companies
cannot make a relay call through the 711. Could the FCC become involved
in that issue?

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: I honestly am not sure whether we could or not. It would
be something that I would have to check with other offices on. I can say
that our outreach office itself, we don\'t develop any types of
regulations or standards, or even proposed law.

We implement policies that other offices in the FCC may have already
adopted relating to consumers, and we share that information. So it\'s
not something that we would initiate, but it\'s something that we can
look into and ask about.

MS. ROOKER: One more question.

MR. KRAFT: I think what he\'s referring to was the fact that many
companies, for example Home Depot. They have PBX in their store and it
is not designed to take 711 calls. For example, a store employee would
not be able to call me at home. If I give them the 711 number, I have
been waiting at home and I haven\'t heard anything from them because
they can\'t even call me. So we need to figure out how the stores can
change that and we configure their PBX. There\'s nothing related to
rules.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: It sounds like if there was an education \--

MR. KRAFT: But it\'s more possibly related to the FCC maybe outreach to
help educate them that this problem exists.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes. That definitely is something that \--

MR. KRAFT: So that they can have that fixed.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes. Sorry.

MR. KRAFT: Because it is an issue because we have to modify a switch, I
think it is, their PBX switch, and once that\'s programmed, it can
accept 711 calls.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Yes. That is the type of information that we can share
with businesses, individual vendors, that sort of thing. Absolutely. And
it\'s also the type of suggest that we would ask this committee to
provide us from time to time so that we can fill in those gaps where
there are deficiencies between the consumer and maybe another consumer
or telecommunications company just because of lack of information we may
be able to address some of those concerns.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you Roger. We do have one final question here. And
this is it.

MS. KELLY-FRYE: This is Brenda Kelly-Frye, the director of the Maryland
Relay. I thank you for bringing up the issue about the 711 non-access
through PBX systems. I do have a little bit additional information. I do
have a little bit additional information.

I appreciate the fact that the FCC perhaps may consider assisting us in
encouraging agencies and companies out there that do have PBX systems
and to reprogramming their system.

However, some PBX systems are privately owned, and we can\'t really
enforce, you can\'t force them to program their systems. And some of
them have done it for good reasons. They don\'t want their employees to
dial 411. It\'s not necessarily that they don\'t want them to dial out
711 to reach the relay, it\'s that they don\'t want them to incur the
additional expense for information phone numbers when they can just pick
up a phone book.

But we in Maryland do send out through the state government, we do send
out through the relay, we send out letters to any companies and
encourage them to reprogram. All it takes is just telling like a
telephone administrator person and asking them to program and allow us
that three digit dialing including 711.

MR. ABDAL-HAQQ: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much. Thank you Irshad. We really appreciate
it.

I have one item of business before we take a break, and that is to find
out who needs a taxi after the meeting?

All right. We\'re going to take a break. We expect you back here at
quarter after three. Thank you.

(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

MS. ROOKER: I thank you for \-- and we have something a little bit
different, and I think it\'s going to be a very interesting presentation
for us. Is Paul here? There he is.

We\'re very pleased to have with us Paul Gallant who is the Chair of the
Media Ownership Working Group in the Media Bureau of the FCC, and he\'s
going to talk about some issues that are really quite important to us in
terms of ownership. So Paul, welcome.

MR. GALLANT: We\'re going to be changing gears a bit as I understand it
with my topic from everything else you\'ve talked about today, and
hopefully at this point of the day that\'s a good thing.

Media ownership right now at the Commission is a very hot topic both in
the cable ownership area and in the broadcast ownership area. To just
step back for a second and let you know how we got to where we are
today, the 1996 Telecommunication Act directed the FCC to review its
broadcast ownership regulations every two years and to decide if each of
those rules continued to serve the public interest. If the rule in
question does not serve the public interest, the Commission is then
directed either to modify the rule or to eliminate the rule.

So we began on September twelfth a biennial review of our media
ownership regulations. The Commission issued a notice of proposed rule
making that sought public comment on whether each of the six existing
broadcast ownership rules continue to serve the public interest.

I thought it would help if I just quickly ran through what those rules
are and what the rules are intended to do.

Four of the FCC\'s broadcast ownership rules are focused on the local
media market. One of those rules is what\'s called the TV dulopoly rule.
It limits the number of TV stations that any one company can own in a
single media market.

A second rule is the local radio ownership rule which serves the same
purpose as the first rule. It limits the number of radio stations that
any one company can own in a single market. To sort of shorthand what
that rule is, it\'s the bigger the market it, the more stations any one
company can own up to a certain level. For example, in a market where
there are 45 radio stations, one company can own, I think the rule says,
up to eight of those 45 stations.

A third locally oriented broadcast ownership rule is the broadcast
newspaper cross ownership rule. And that prohibits the common ownership
of a local broadcast television station and a newspaper in the same
city.

Before 1975 when this rule was adopted, there were a number of those
combinations, but the Commission decided that they tended to exert an
unacceptable level of influence over community affairs, so they ordered
several of the existing combinations to sell one or the other of the
properties and grand-fathered the remaining broadcast newspaper
combinations. So there are there a few in existence today, but going
forward, there is a ban on those kind of combinations coming into
existence.

The fourth local ownership rule is a rule that limits the number of TV
and radio stations any one company can own in a market. This is sort of
a cross ownership rule. If you already own a TV station, that limits the
number of radio stations you can own or vice versa.

There are two national ownership rules as well. One is the national
television ownership rule which says that one company can own no more
television stations that serve up to 35 percent of the US television
households.

The second national ownership rule is what\'s called the dual network
rule, and that rule prevents the merger of any of the top four broadcast
networks from merging.

The goals of these broadcast ownership regulations are to preserve and
promote competition, diversity, and localism in the media markets.
Competition is important because generally speaking, vigorous
competition, between and among any kind of companies tends to serve the
public interest by giving companies the incentive to improve their
products and lower their prices.

Diversity is obviously a central goal of our media ownership regulations
as well. The Commission has traditionally assumed that separate
ownership of media outlets tends to promote a diversity of view points
on the air and that that is very important to the functioning of the
government and the airing of public issues.

The third policy goal of the FCC\'s media ownership regulations is
localism, and we have aimed to have ownership rules that encourage media
companies to serve their local communities.

One example of this is the 35 percent national TV ownership cap, and one
of the theories that that rule rests on is that by insuring that there
are a number of TV stations out there that are not owned by TV networks
that those stations will sometimes decide not to air particular
programming that a network would like it to air because in the
station\'s judgment that programming may be unsuitable or, you know,
inappropriate for the community that that TV station serves.

So the FCC\'s 35 percent ownership trap is intended in part to preserve
localism and give the local TV stations, 65 percent of the local TV
stations, an incentive to insure that broadcast network programming is
appropriate for their communities.

So again, the Commission opened up this big ownership proceeding on
September twelfth. Public comments are due on the questions that were
asked in that notice on January second, and reply comments are due here
on February third.

To improve the Commission\'s understanding of the media market and how
consumers use the media, the FCC \-- or I should say, Chairman Powell
created the media ownership working group which I became the Chair of.

Our job was to do studies of the media market including how the market
works and where consumers get news and information from in order to give
the Commission a solid factual basis to review it\'s media ownership
rules this time around.

We completed those studies and put them out for public comment on
October first, and they\'re all posted on our web site if you\'re
interested in taking a look at them.

So once the public comment comes in on January second and the replies on
February third, the Commission will then have hopefully a solid record
to understand how the market works and how consumers use the media to
re-evaluate its existing ownership regulations. And the goal of the
Commission is to complete this rule making and review by the spring of
next year.

So that\'s sort of where things stand, and that\'s how we\'ve gotten to
this point. I\'m happy to take any questions that you have.

MS. ROOKER: Tell us how you\'re looking at the existing rules and what
you think might change particularly related to consumer issues and
disability issues.

MR. GALLANT: Well, the consumer issue in media ownership, I think, at
least one of the consumer issues, is the viewpoint diversity question I
mentioned earlier. I mean one of the goals of FCC regulation of media
ownership is ensuring that there are sufficient diversity of viewpoints
out there so that consumers and citizens have the ideas and the
information available to them so that they can make decisions in the
democratic process.

That\'s not necessarily sort of a financial issue, but it\'s a critical
democratic issue, and it\'s been the organizing principle of the
Commission\'s historical regulation of media ownership.

That\'s clearly been a central goal, and so I think that would be the
easiest consumer oriented goal that I could point you to in this area,
and it\'s a very important one.

MS. ROOKER: What about the disability issues? Is there anything in
particular that you\'re reflecting in recommendations that have to do
with access?

MR. GALLANT: I can\'t say for sure, but off hand, I mean, the Notice of
Proposed Rule Making that was issued in September I don\'t think raised
those issues. I\'m not certain, but I don\'t think the ownership rules
implicate the disability issues.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Do we have any questions here? I think Dirk and
then Larry.

MR. HARGRAVES: Thanks for your presentation. I met earlier in this week
with Media Telecommunications Counsel and NABOB, National Association of
Black Owned Broadcasters, and they expressed concern.

And I guess the understanding now that these reviews come along every
two years we\'re having, but the concern is the importance of diversity
and ownership and what have you was an issue that many minorities
thought was already decided, and it seems that this is being opened up
again.

Are we saying that the idea is to tweak the system so that we can better
achieve the goals of diversity, localism, and competition, or is there a
fundamental question of whether or not minorities and women and small
business owners should have access to the ownership of different forms
of media?

MR. GALLANT: Well, the Commission has historically undertaken specific
efforts aimed at promoting ownership of broadcast outlets by minorities,
women, and small businesses, and I\'m not an expert on \-- I can\'t give
you a great deal of detail of those, but I know that some of those
started to run into resistance in the courts in the early and mid
nineties.

As we think about that goal and as we deal with that goal in this
proceeding, one of the things that we\'ve asked the public to comment
on, and as you know from my discussion at MMTC a few days ago, we have
asked people very directly to supply us not just with information about
why this is a good goal and what we should do but a clear explanation as
they see it of how we can get there legally because, you know, we\'ve
had sort of mixed success in the courts, to put it mildly, recently, and
it\'s really important to us that the media ownership rules that come
out of this proceeding stand up in court.

So I would just underscore that along with the policy telling us why
it\'s important to have rules that promote minority and female and small
business entry and involvement in this business that we have, you can
show us a legal path to get there. I mean, we think about this too, but
we would really benefit from some public input.

MR. HARGRAVES: Just a follow-up, would you be inclined to comment or
characterize the discussion in terms of the FCC\'s limited resources in
the studies that they\'ve tried to conduct and the concern that MMTC had
that the some of the studies weren\'t \-- I guess the predicates of the
studies weren\'t in keeping with how they would have preferred to have
done, and the response was that, well, we can do our own studies and
kind of give you that information.

MR. GALLANT: Well, yes, I mean to some extent I think no matter what we
did, there will be people with interest in having us do more or
different work. But I think it\'s important to keep in mind that this is
a significant improvement over anything the Commission\'s ever done in
the area of media ownership research on it\'s own.

I mean, typically, the Commission waits for public comment to come in
and takes whatever the public tells us for better or worst, and that\'s
our record and we make decisions on that. Sometimes that gives us a good
record, and sometimes it doesn\'t.

So we didn\'t want to take a chance this time of lacking the kind of
information we need to make some good policy decisions here, so we went
out and did our own studies, and we hoped that that would be the first
volley in this debate about how the market works and how consumers use
the media.

In an effort to make our own studies as transparent and as sort of open
to the public as possible, we\'ve released as much of the underlying
data as we can publicly on our web site or in our reference room. We\'ve
also made available some proprietary data that the study\'s relied on.

If people want to come in and look at that data here at the Commission
on our computers and work with it, we made a process available for them
to do that. We\'ve even made the authors of these 12 studies available
for anyone from the public who wants to come in and understand better
how these studies were created, what the methodology was, and what, you
know, just sort of how they reached their results.

So we\'ve tried to make this an open and transparent process for anybody
from the public who wants to really engage on these issues that you\'re
raising.

MS. ROOKER: Larry.

MR. GOLDBERG: I think you opened up by saying that the cross ownership
rules also affect the cable industry, but you didn\'t list those in your
six areas that the NPRM is looking at. Is that a separate proceeding, or
is that part of it as well.

MR. GALLANT: Yes, that\'s a good question. The biennial ownership review
that Congress directs us to do every two years actually just focuses on
the broadcast ownership rules.

And you\'re right. There are two other ownership rules that we have
related to cable operators that we are also reviewing on a separate
track, and it will likely be completed before the broadcast review.

The cable ownership rules, just to quickly give you an understanding of
what they are, the 1992 Cable Act directed the FCC to set a maximum
number of households that any one cable company can serve nationwide.
The FCC set that limit initially at 30 percent.

That was challenged in court by one of the cable companies successfully,
and the court said the FCC didn\'t have a good enough rationale and
evidence to set the 30 percent cap, the cap where it did at 30 percent.

So it sent the issue back to us, and we are not actively reviewing that,
and we\'re entering the later stages of that review, and we hope to have
a decision relatively soon on that.

The other cable ownership rule is a sort of horizontal nationwide
ownership cap. It\'s what\'s referred to as the vertical ownership rule,
and Congress also in the 1992 Cable Act directed the agency to limit the
number of channels devoted on a cable system to programming that is
affiliated or owned by the cable operator. The goal there, I think, was
to insure a certain amount of shelf space for independent programmers
that are unaffiliated with cable operators.

The court also had problems with the way we came up with our initial
vertical ownership limit, and so they sent that back to us as well. So
that\'s bound up in the same proceeding on cable ownership that we\'re
handling right now.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Do we have other questions? Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: In which of the proceedings do you look at the sort of
cross ownership for the ownership by the national TV networks of cable
networks, like the recent NBC purchase of Bravo?

MR. GALLANT: Well, at least as best that I understand your question from
the example that you gave at the end, the FCC does not regulate the \--
well, I don\'t want to say this too broadly, but the FCC does not
regulate the, sort of, relationship between programming networks.

There\'s not a regulatory hook when NBC buys Bravo or when two cable
channels want to get together. That\'s not \-- Congress has not given us
authority to look at that kind of transaction.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Would you see that as potentially being something that
needs legislation then, just in terms of the increasing concentration of
sort of media ownership?

MR. GALLANT: Well, I mean that issue comes \-- I guess I just start by
saying I wouldn\'t be the right person to advise Congress on what they,
you know \-- they\'ll do what they think is appropriate.

I mean, the issue though that you raise comes into play to some extent
in the broadcast ownership proceeding that we\'re working on right now
where we\'re looking at, you know, how many and what kind of media
outlets are out there today, and is this different than it was 20, 30,
40 years ago when a lot of these broadcast rules were first put into
place. And if the world is very different than it was at that time, you
know, what does that mean for our existing ownership rules.

So if you have a lot more of the cable channels and even if you look at
the internet or, you know, DVS, I mean, clearly there are some things
that are different today and, you know, that may have implications for
some of the broadcast ownership rules.

So I\'m not sure if that answers your question, but the example you gave
does come into play to some extent in the broadcast ownership
proceeding.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have other questions? Okay. Well, we thank you very
much for being with us.

MR. GALLANT: All right. Thank you for inviting me.

MS. ROOKER: This comes to the second to where we invite comments from
public attendees to this meeting who are not members of the committee.
We would like to find out if we have anyone who wants to make any
comments.

No public comments. Oh, Scott\'s just asking me a question. We do have a
public comment. You know, I really did skip an important part, and that
is to talk about the media ownership rules. I apologize for that.

Do you mind waiting? Okay, thank you. We really do need to discuss
whether or not anything that we have just learned we want to make
recommendations to the FCC, and the issues seem to be the diversity
issue, larger ownerships, the buying up of, gobbling up you might say,
of some of the cable stations by the networks, the cross ownership
issues. Are there things here that we would want to make
recommendations? Dirck?

MR. HARGRAVES: I don\'t want to speak out of turn, but the MMTC and
NABOB, and a host of other groups are advocating on behalf of women and
minority owned and disadvantages businesses are coalescing around this
issue. We might want to reach out to them and not re-invent the wheel,
and work together.

MS. ROOKER: I see. So instead of us putting out issues, you\'re saying
we should maybe hear from them?

MR. HARGRAVES: Sure. Sure.

MS. ROOKER: In terms of further discussion?

MR. HARGRAVES: That would be a recommendation. MMTC, which is the
Minority and Media Telecommunications Counsel. Dave Hoenig is Executive
Director. And NABOB, the National Association of Black Owned
Broadcasters. And I forget the gentleman\'s name there, but that would
be my recommendation.

MS. ROOKER: What about issues for in the disabilities community. What
does multiple ownerships mean? Does it mean anything, Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: Well, I\'ve been trying to think about the implications
and in particular on captioning and description, it would almost make
sense if there was only one network and they owned every TV station in
the country. We could easily have 100 percent captioning and is one
program all the time. But clearly that\'s not \--

MS. ROOKER: Might get boring.

MR. GOLDBERG: Yes. Aside from that, I think that there\'s sort of a
natural kinship, obviously, because of this committee between consumer
concerns over media concentration and the disability community, and I
almost turn it back to you Shirley. You\'re Chair, but you certainly are
head of an organization that clearly has significant concerns about
this.

But as Paul was saying and as you might think of any other disability
representatives here, it\'s hard to imagine particularly negative
consequences to making TV accessible unless you want to spin out some
paranoid fantasies of one decision by one company, the, you know,
Disney/AOL/Turner/Paramount Company. If it was all one, they could stop
all access. But I think that\'s a stretch.

So I think the concerns of the consumer representatives are paramount
here, and that\'s you, and Ken, and \--

MS. ROOKER: Ken, what do you say about that? Are you there, Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: What do I say about what?

MS. ROOKER: Larry was saying that he says he feels that the consumer
community\'s concerns about gigantic ownerships or multiple ownerships
in markets is a consumer issues, and I said what do you think about
that?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes. I mean, I think definitely. I think certainly the
coverage recently of Clear Channel in terms of not only their ownership
of radio stations but their control of programming of radio stations and
the ownership of, you know, constant booking agencies, plus bill boards,
plus \-- I mean, in certain markets, they\'ve gotten a concentration of,
you know, well over 50 percent of the radio stations.

I think the same sort of thing happening in TV and I think it\'s
increasingly of being of being a very serious concern in the consumer,
you know, movement just in terms of that type of concentration as being
sort of really just not conducive to open exchange of ideas.

MS. ROOKER: Certainly I can kind of agree with you on that Ken. What
I\'ve seen is that the large ownerships with multiple dollars to spend
can come in and really put the smaller radio stations out of the
business. I guess that\'s an economic fact of competition, but it does
happen.

Or at least make them change their formats to something else, because
they go head to head with them on a particular format and just knock
them out of the market. And that has happened. I won\'t cite cases, but
it\'s happened here in Washington.

So at any rate, there is that concern. Is there some way that we want to
express something to the FCC on this issue?

MR. McELDOWNEY: I\'m just not sure how to put it. I\'m sure I\'m
conference call brain dead.

MS. ROOKER: It\'s Friday brain dead too.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I know. I think it sort of points out one of the
problems I think we\'ve had in terms of when sort of new issues are
brought up late in the meeting.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I think it\'s been very hard to look at them with any
sort of a clear or focused mind.

MS. ROOKER: Well, this is not an issue that\'s going away, and there\'s
no reason that we have to make decisions today. Wait a minute. Scott\'s
got something.

MR. MARSHALL: No, it\'s true. And the comment period is open for people
to comment.

MS. ROOKER: And the comment period is open. It will be open for as I
figure it well into February. Not before our next meeting. I mean, it
will be up, but we can always make comments and make recommendations. Is
that right? Yes. It doesn\'t have to be the proposed rule making.

So maybe this is something that we would want to take a look at in a
little bit more depth and hearing from more people. Give us some time to
think about it. It\'s certainly a different focus than what we\'ve been
doing, but it\'s certainly one that I think concerns all of us when we
see huge ownership.

So, I know from my organization it can affect negatively depending on
whether or not that particular corporate owner happens to feel friendly
to consumers because our relationship with broadcasters is dependant
upon the broadcaster having an interest in serving the community.

Since that\'s no longer a requirement, it\'s now a special gift, I
think, when broadcasters want to bring an organization like Call for
Action. I\'m happy to report that we\'re growing tremendously with four
new stations this year, but you never know what\'s down the road.

MR. McELDOWNEY: No, I like that idea of looking at it in perhaps a
little more detail in February, and at that point we\'ll have the
benefit of, sort of, the comments that people have made. So I think that
will help us in terms of getting a slant on terms of possible motion.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right. Then why don\'t we say that this is
something that we\'re going to consider at our next meeting. We have
another agenda item for Scott here. Judith, I think you had a question.

MS. HARKINS: This one is for you, Ken, and for Shirley because you\'re
the experts, you know, in this area.

I wonder if you think it would be appropriate to commend the Commission
for initiating a study on this rather than just going to a public
proceeding but actually looking at it in a serious way.

MS. ROOKER: I was very pleased to hear in Paul\'s remarks about them
actually instead of just basing their comments on what consumers say \--
and of course, you\'re never certain what slant the consumer\'s coming
from \-- but that they actually went out and spent the resources.

Perhaps that is the one thing that we should say as a result of this
meeting that the Commission is to be commended on the depth of their
involvement in looking at the issue. Would we want to make that kind of
a positive motion? Somebody want to say it?

MS. HARKINS: I think that\'s a great idea.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Then can we put it just like I kind of said it? All
right. I\'m making a motion that \-- I love being Chair. God you\'ve got
power. That we commend the FCC and the efforts and resources that
they\'ve expended in looking at the issues of ownership in broadcast and
media, and they are to be commended.

All right. With the motion on the floor, do we have a second? Okay. All
in favor, say aye.

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: It\'s approved. Okay, it\'s passed. Thank you very much.

Anything else that we want to discuss on that issue, Paul?

MR. LUDWICK: I have something, but I\'m not sure really appropriate for
the group, but it\'s something that bothers me on a personal level, and
maybe this is just my soapbox.

MS. ROOKER: Let\'s talk about it.

MR. LUDWICK: Okay. It\'s come to my understanding that in many areas, an
increasing number of areas of the country, groups with political agendas
are purchasing radio stations that share their band width with public
radio stations that provide public radio.

Effectively, what that does is take public radio off the air in that
area of the country.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, really? That\'s a new one to me. You mean, if someone
bought the band width that NPR \--

MR. LUDWICK: Well, I think the way it works, and maybe somebody knows a
little bit more about it \--

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t know anything about it.

MR. LUDWICK: \-- but stations can share band width.

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. LUDWICK: Low power stations. So some \--

MS. ROOKER: Right. Both upper and lower bands and all that stuff, right.

MR. LUDWICK: So some stations share band width with a station that
provides public radio. Well, a political group comes in an buys the
station that owns the band width and effectively withdraws the sharing
agreement, takes public radio off the air in that area of the country.

My opinion is it\'s not in the best interest of the public to have that
removed from the air, but I\'m not sure there\'s anything this group
could do about it or say about it, but it\'s something that bothers me
personally.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t know. Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: I can mention a little more about that. Only a little bit,
but because it\'s a member of the family and NPR, in Louisiana in
particular there was a station that became available on the market.

It was bought up, and it\'s happening \-- mostly religious broadcasters
who in particular were posing the kind of programming on NPR, and by
buying a station and then increasing their wattage, they were able to
pretty much wipe out the coverage area of the local NPR station.

The NPR stations not having the resources to fight for it, and they were
basically asleep at the switch. NPR now is well aware of the problem. It
caused quite a bit of turmoil there, and they\'re going to try to
provide more resources to the stations.

I think the most that the Commission might be able to do is to be a
little bit more proactive and not just being passively allow this to
happen but to just notify it and to make sure that the other stations
have the time to react because it was somewhat a fast purchase,
completely legal, but it really left a lot of people unaware. And these
little tiny NPR stations just don\'t have the resources to fight it.

MS. ROOKER: You know, that\'s a new one on me. I think perhaps what we
should do is put this on as an agenda item so that we can discuss it
further at another meeting. We can get some information on what\'s
really happening.

Is it possible, Larry, that you could provide us with any data or input
on where it\'s happened, and how many times, and \--

MR. GOLDBERG: Sure. I think both the NPR side and the media bureau is
probably a good place for that, but I could look into that.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. GOLDBERG: NPR, like I said, woke up and put a lot of resources into
making sure their members don\'t get caught short again. Luckily another
station became available in Louisiana, so those folks who were without
any NPR programming now have some programming back.

MS. ROOKER: I thought there was a limit when a radio station on what
it\'s wattage it can \-- you know, there are restrictions on what kind
of wattage you can have, but obviously they\'re living within the law
when they do this.

MR. GOLDBERG: That\'s right.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s an excellent suggestion. Anything else? It\'s a
cruel world David says. Well, it\'s not a cruel world. I hope it\'s
still a beautiful day outside. I don\'t know. It\'s probably dark by
now.

Unless you have any other comments, I would like to turn this over to
the folks who wanted to speak from the public. Thank you for your
patience.

MR. CRIEGEN: Good afternoon. Tim Criegen. I\'ll try to keep this short
because I know we all want to go home. It\'s Friday night. I just have
two general questions. I don\'t know if these are something that you can
answer, but if there\'s someone that I could be directed to.

The first question: I\'m a little leery to ask this especially in view
of today\'s decision we heard, but in view of changed technologies since
the original captioning laws went into effect, specifically DVDs, is
there any effort or any movement by the FCC to look into looking at
different technology that exists today which didn\'t exist at the time
the law was enacted. For example, to make close captioning a requirement
for DVD players. That\'s one question.

The second question is among the proceedings we talked about, we talked
about the biannual review and so forth, as a consumer especially one
with hearing loss, I\'m particularly interested in the status of the
open proceeding on hearing aid compatible telephones, and I was
wondering if you could give us any sense of where the Commission is on
resolving that or where they are with dealing with that.

I know that the comment and reply comment periods are over. I know that
there has been certainly movement in the community to talk to the FCC
and have meetings, and so forth. I was wondering if you could give us
some sense of a time frame for a decision on that.

MS. ROOKER: I can\'t. I mean, I\'m totally out in left field. Scott, can
you?

MR. MARSHALL: No, and if it is an open proceeding, I\'m afraid we really
can\'t talk about it.

MS. ROOKER: Scott says if it\'s an open proceeding that he can\'t talk
about it.

MR. MARSHALL: You\'re welcome though to \--

MS. ROOKER: Margaret, do you know any answers?

MS. EGLER: Margaret Egler, FCC. The question was this is the accessible
telephone? We\'re not talking about \-- you\'re talking about 256 and
255, right?

MR. CRIEGEN: Two different questions. One was about whether the FCC is
making any movement to look at applying captioning rules to new
technology which didn\'t exist at the time of the original act,
specifically I mentioned DVD players. That was one question.

MS. EGLER: All right.

MR. CRIEGEN: The second question was whether there\'s any indication of
what the time frame might be in result to a ruling coming down in the
open proceeding on hearing aid compatible telephones.

MS. EGLER: Right. I can tell you on the first one, I don\'t know off the
top of my head. We could get back to you on that because that\'s the
media bureau if that\'s happening, and I just don\'t know off the top of
my head. But we can definitely get back.

What we\'ll do is, Scott, if you\'ll make a note of that question, we
can send it down to them then you can send it out to the list.

As far as the second question, the hearing aid compatibility, that is
under active review. I can tell you that\'s something that is actually
being worked on at this point in time, but we don\'t disclose, nor can
we because we are not the four people sitting up on the eighth floor of
this building, when things are going to get acted on.

So that\'s just the way it goes. But I can tell you it\'s being worked
on actively right now, the second question, the hearing aid
compatibility question. Okay?

MR. CRIEGEN: Okay. Thank you.

MS. EGLER: Sure.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much. Do we have any other questions from the
public? Larry? You\'re not the public.

MR. GOLDBERG: No, but I can help with Tim\'s question a little bit.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. GOLDBERG: In terms of where we first were able to get captions built
into these TV sets was the TVD Coder Circuitry Act, and that was
explicitly about receivers and it did not cover such a thing as a VCR.
But the extension of the Decoder Act covers digital televisions.

Digital televisions are not necessarily a box that has both a receiver
in it and the display, so the FCC rules requiring caption capabilities
for digital television are in both the set top boxes, the external
devices, as well as the displays.

So maybe not a DVD. The FCC really doesn\'t have jurisdiction over
DVD\'s, but a box like a TVO box or some of the new advanced
technologies that will receive your signal, record them, and play them
back will be required to support captioning.

It\'s hard to imagine in the atmosphere particularly all the cases the
FCC\'s lost on jurisdiction for them to try to now look at DVDs or the
movies or things like that. They really don\'t have any standing there.
But devices that help you watch television and the signals that are
coming in over broadcaster cable will have to support captions in the
digital environment. So we\'re almost there with what Tim is looking
for.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Larry. Do we have any other comments?

Well, I\'d like to make a personal comment \-- Al?

MS. ENSTRAW: I\'d like to make a public comment, but if you don\'t mind,
I\'d like to sit here so the interpreter can see me. Is that all right?
I don\'t need a microphone. She has one in her hand.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s good.

MS. ENSTRAW: Again, my name is Alison Enstraw. My question or concern
regarding this group, is this group able to help or not sure but the
issue is, for example, headline news on CNN.

It\'s 30 minute news, and it\'s continuous from 8:00 in the morning
until 2:00 in the morning only. That\'s the only time that they provide
captioning. But the last five minutes of every 30 minute segment there
is a coding on headline news.

For the last five minutes you have a choice of ongoing captions for
headline news or local edition news depending on what locality you\'re
in. It depends on which locality the cable exists in.

So now in some places or some localities, some cables choose to add
their own news, their own programs, that are not captioned, so that
would mean for the viewer that they\'ll show five minutes without
captions because it\'s the local news and that overrides the headline
news.

So I don\'t see the last five minutes of the headlines news of
captioning. So currently, the FCC rules state that if it\'s less than
five minutes, you don\'t need to have captioning.

Now, my question is, they show five minutes of uncaptioning program
instead of letting the headline news with their captioning ride through.
Do you have any ruling on that, any special kind of issues regarding
that? Do you understand my question?

MS. EGLER: Yes. I mean, I understand your question. I said I\'ll answer
this.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MS. EGLER: And I\'m not an expert on the captioning, but basically, the
rules as far as captioning are put upon what we call the multichannel
video distributors which are the cable companies, etcetera.

There\'s a certain percentage that they have to caption every year, and
that amount goes up incrementally until, I think it\'s, 2004 or 2006. So
as far as \-- we\'d have to look at the whole picture as far as what
headline news is captioning, and it may be that they\'re captioning
enough of the percentage to be able to give the five minutes to their
local people or to keep their own five minutes at the end that they may
already caption. But we have to look at the entire day and all the hours
together.

If you feel if a company, a particular channel, for example this would
be the headline news as provided by whatever cable company you\'re
watching which would be the distributor of the programming, if you have
a complaint, you know, send it to us. We have a whole system of how to
deal with closed captioning complaints, and we would look at it.

But there\'s currently not a requirement of 100 percent captioning.
It\'s something that\'s going up. Now, let me just make this one point.
As opposed to emergency captioning which is sort of a different
situation where there\'s an emergency situation.

But when we\'re talking about just general programming, there are
requirements for captioning, and it\'s something that\'s going up every
year but it\'s not 100 percent right now.

MS. ENSTRAW: Okay. I did file a complaint.

MS. EGLER: Okay.

MS. ENSTRAW: And the FCC did respond, so I really appreciate Jennifer
Simpson\'s comment, and she gave me additional information as well. She
said that since it\'s less than five minutes, it\'s not necessary to be
captioned and there you have an exemption within a separate ruling.

Now, my question is, is it okay for them to override the headline news
because that is captioned instead of showing a captioned program that\'s
already being broadcast in the local \-- so can a local cable company
kick out that five minutes? Do they have that right to put it in even
though it\'s uncaptioned? Do they have that right?

MS. EGLER: That\'s a contract that they would have. I mean, what you\'ll
see is you\'ll see headline news in the big cities. You\'ll see it in
the small rural areas. Often the big cities have a \-- if it\'s a
headline news, basically it\'s Time Warner has an agreement with the
cable companies to get to insert local news or some public interest, or
they just pile in a bunch of commercials.

I mean, it\'s however they have their individual contract with that
cable company, you know, whether its Commcast or Cox. Whereas in the
smaller areas where they don\'t have \-- there\'s no separate production
facilities, they\'ll show all 30 minutes of headline news.

You see, like when you\'re in a hotel and it\'s just a single antenna
system, you\'ll see the entire 30 minutes of headline news. But that\'s
a contractual arrangement. We don\'t get involved in it, but in terms of
what the percentage of complete captioning, that would be something that
would go into the mix when we look at that particular distributor\'s
captioning. Does that answer your question?

MS. ENSTRAW: Okay. Yes. You\'re speaking from a legal point, yes. But
I\'m still wondering if this committee is able to make an agreement that
that is a serious issue and that needs to be researched for the next
meeting because I would like to make a request that the FCC does set up
a non-exemption because if they\'re already showing a program that has
captioning, then it would not be right to be able to supplement that
with a show that\'s not having captioning. So I was wondering if that\'s
a serious enough issue for this group to consider.

MS. ROOKER: I would really have to talk with the people at the FCC as to
whether or not that\'s something that we can do. I can\'t really answer
you right now. I\'m sorry. Scott do you have something?

MR. MARSHALL: I think we have to consider it for another agenda.

MS. ROOKER: Yes, we\'ll have to consider it for another agenda item.
We\'re certainly welcome \-- we certainly will entertain the idea. We
need to do a little research. Joe?

MS. ENSTRAW: Thank you very much.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Al.

JOE: I have more of problem than five minutes with headline news. On
Sunday there\'s no captioning at all on headline news, and I did write
to them, and they said, well, we\'ve fulfilled our January 2002
commitment plus, so I could live with the five minutes, but I can\'t
watch headline news on a Sunday.

MS. EGLER: Yes, and they may be right. I mean, obviously I don\'t have
your complaint or their response in front of me, but again, it\'s not
100 percent yet, and whether it\'s a monthly or quarterly requirement,
again, I\'m not completely sure. But it\'s something that little by
little will incrementally go up, but right now they may have fulfilled
it. It\'s basically so that they can get used to doing it and then do it
all the time.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Do we have any other public comments?

MS. ENSTRAW: Actually, can I add one more thing?

MS. ROOKER: Sure.

MS. ENSTRAW: I want to make a response to Jacob\'s question. I do
believe that headline news does show captioning on the weekends from
8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. Is that incorrect? I thought
that they did show \-- it is of course shorter than what they provide
during the week. Okay.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Well, thank you. Does anyone else have any other
comments?

Well, I\'d just like to take a personal moment to say I really
appreciate the service that you all have given to this committee. I
strongly encourage you as soon as the Federal Register comes out to
apply for the new committee which will be formed and as I said will
follow the same schedule we\'ve done in the past for our meetings.

I\'ve learned an awful lot. I hope you\'ve learned a lot. But thank you
so much. You\'ve worked very hard, and you only accomplish things
because everybody puts their head together and butts heads, and that\'s
kind of the fun part of it, isn\'t it.

But at any rate, thank you all so much. Scott has made me promise to
give him the microphone. I turn it over to him reluctantly.

MR. MARSHALL: Does this mean I get the last word?

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. MARSHALL: I want to thank you all for being a wonderful group to
work with over the past two years. It\'s been a privilege for me to do
that, and I also want to thank Amy Brown who\'s been working with me
these past several months and has been just terrific support for this
committee, and also, Shirley, your staff and your office that does all
of the letters when we file comments.

MS. ROOKER: My staff?

MR. MARSHALL: Your staff of one gets all those letters out in a very
timely way and takes care of all the logistics about getting the food
bill paid, and I don\'t have to worry about that. And I just wanted to
thank you for that and I hope you\'ll pass that along to Carol.

MS. ROOKER: I will.

MR. MARSHALL: She\'s been fantastic. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: She is fantastic. Well, thank you all so much. Do we have a
move that we adjourn? And Second? All in favor?

(Chorus of ayes.)

MS. ROOKER: Opposed.

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Well, goodbye folks. Have a good holiday.

(Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the meeting in the above-entitled matter was
concluded.)

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**[REPORTER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

**CASE TITLE**: Consumer/Disability Telecommunications Advisory
Committee (C/DTAC) Meeting

**HEARING DATE**: November 8, 2002

**LOCATION**: Federal Communications Commission

Washington, D.C.

I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully
and accurately on the tapes and notes reported by me at the hearing in
the above matter before the Federal Communications Commission.

Date: [November 8, 2002]{.underline} [Edna Thomas]{.underline}

Official Reporter

Heritage Reporting Corporation

1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 600

Washington, D.C. 20005-4018

**[TRANSCRIBER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence were fully and
accurately transcribed from the tapes and notes provided by the above
named reporter in the above case before the Federal Communications
Commission.

Date: [November 18, 2002]{.underline} [Judith E. Persson]{.underline}

Official Transcriber

Heritage Reporting Corporation

**[PROOFREADER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

I hereby certify that the transcript of the proceedings and evidence in
the above referenced case that was held before the Federal
Communications Commission was proofread on the date specified below.

Date: [November 18, 2002]{.underline} [Carlos Gamez]{.underline}
Official Proofreader

Heritage Reporting Corporation