Achieving 100% Wireless Handset Model Hearing Aid Compatibility

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 20</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 23-388; FCC 23-108; FR ID 195641]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Achieving 100% Wireless Handset Model Hearing Aid Compatibility</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (“Commission”) tentatively concludes that requiring 100% of all handset models to be certified as hearing aid-compatible is an achievable object and seeks comment on revising the definition of hearing aid compatibility to include Bluetooth connectivity technology. In addition, the Commission seeks comment on a number of implementation proposals related to this tentative conclusion. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested parties may file comments on or before February 26, 2024, and reply comments on or before March 11, 2024. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before March 26, 2024. Written comments on the Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) in this document must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA and must be submitted by the public on or before February 26, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by WT Docket No. 23-388, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. Filings can be sent by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail. All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Commercial overnight mail (other than U.S. Postal Service Express Mail and Priority Mail) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • U.S. Postal Service first-class, Express, and Priority mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • Effective March 19, 2020, and until further notice, the Commission no longer accepts any hand or messenger delivered filings. This is a temporary measure taken to help protect the health and safety of individuals, and to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. <E T="03">See FCC Announces Closure of FCC Headquarters Open Window and Change in Hand-Delivery Filing,</E> Public Notice, 35 FCC Rcd 2788 (2020), <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-closes-headquarters-open-window-and-changes-hand-delivery-policy.</E> <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), please send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information on this proceeding, contact Eli Johnson, <E T="03">Eli.Johnson@fcc.gov,</E> of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Competition & Infrastructure Policy Division, (202) 418-1395. For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Cathy Williams at (202) 418-2918. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), in WT Docket No. 23-388; FCC 23-108, adopted December 13, 2023, and released on December 14, 2023. The full text of the document is available for download at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-108A1.pdf.</E> The complete text of this document is also available for inspection and copying during normal business hours in the FCC Reference Information Center, 45 L Street NE, Room 1.150, Washington, DC 20554, (202) 418-0270. <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act:</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemakings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning the possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Written public comments are requested on the IRFA. Comments must be by the deadlines for comments on this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking indicated in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of this document and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA and must be filed in WT Docket No. 23-388. <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act:</E> This document contains proposed modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. If the Commission adopts any new or revised information collection requirements, the Commission will publish a notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> inviting the general public and the Office of Management and Budget to comment on the information collection requirements. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comment on how it might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules:</E> This proceeding shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda, or other filings in the proceeding, then the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03"> ex parte </E> presentations and must be filed consistent with 47 CFR 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by 47 CFR 1.49(f), or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> The Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, requires each agency, in providing notice of a rulemaking, to post online a brief plain-language summary of the proposed rule. The required summary of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. The Commission has a longstanding commitment to ensuring that all Americans, including those with disabilities, are able to access communications services on an equal basis. The recent pandemic highlighted just how important equal access to communications services is for individual well-being as well as the day-to-day functioning of American society. The Commission's commitment to ensuring accessibility for all Americans includes ensuring those with hearing loss—more than 37.5 million Americans—have equal access to communications services as required by section 710 of the Communications Act. This section directs the Commission to facilitate compatibility between wireless handset models and hearing aids. In fulfilling this statutory directive, the Commission is committed to ensuring that its wireless hearing aid compatibility provisions keep pace both with the ways handset models couple with hearing devices and requiring all handset models to be hearing aid compatible. It is with these objectives in mind that the Commission initiates today's rulemaking. 2. Specifically, the Commission issues this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to develop a record with respect to a proposal submitted to the Commission by the Hea ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 193k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━