National Suicide Hotline Act of 2018

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket No. 18-336; FCC 24-45; FR ID 221857]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>National Suicide Hotline Act of 2018</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) proposes to require wireless carriers to implement one or more georouting solutions for calls to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to ensure that calls are routed based on the geographic location for the origin of the call, rather than the area code and exchange associated with a wireless phone. The Commission also seeks comment on a variety of issues related to the implementation of a georouting solution for wireless calls, non-wireless calls, and text messages to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before June 28, 2024, and reply comments are due on or before July 29, 2024. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before July 29, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). <E T="03">See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings,</E> 63 FR 24121 (1998). You may submit comments, identified by WC Docket No. 18-336, 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">http://apps.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. • Until further notice, the Commission no longer accepts any hand or messenger delivered filings. See FCC Announces Closure of FCC Headquarters Open Window and Change in Hand-Delivery Policy, Public Notice, DA 20-304 (March 19, 2020), <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-closes-headquarters-open-window-and-changes-hand-delivery-policy.</E> • <E T="03">Confidentiality:</E> Some information and materials requested by this <E T="03">FNPRM</E> may be confidential and proprietary. Individuals and entities may request that confidential and proprietary information submitted to the Commission be withheld from public inspection consistent with § 0.459 of the Commission's rules. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Merry Wulff, Attorney Advisor, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">MerryWulff@fcc.gov</E> or at (202) 418-1084. For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Nicole Ongele, <E T="03">Nicole.Ongele@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</E> ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ) in WC Docket No. 18-336, FCC 24-45, adopted April 25, 2024, and released April 26, 2024. The full text of this document is available for public inspection at the following internet address: <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-45A1.pdf.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Ex Parte Rules</HD> 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, 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 rule 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule 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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> 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 potential rule and policy changes contained in this <E T="03">FNPRM.</E> The Commission invites the general public, particularly small businesses, to comment on the IRFA. Comments must be filed by the deadlines for comments on the <E T="03">FNPRM</E> indicated on the first page of this document and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA and must be filed in WC Docket No. 18-336. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This document may contain proposed new or revised 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. 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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act</HD> 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 <E T="03">FNPRM</E> is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposedrulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. In this <E T="03">FNPRM,</E> we continue the Commission's work to provide meaningful access to the 988 Lifeline by proposing that we adopt rules requiring wireless carriers to implement a georouting solution for calls to the 988 Lifeline. We acknowledge and commend the work that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and Vibrant Emotional Health (Vibrant or Lifeline Administrator) have done to date to explore and test solutions, and seek to build on that effort by developing a record that will clarify the georouting solutions that have been proposed, establish the work that remains for a solution to be deployed on wireless networks, and help us consider how to proceed towards requiring wireless carriers to implement one or more solutions. In so doing, we acknowledge that any georouting solution for 988 will require cooperation between the wireless carriers originating calls and the Lifeline Administrator that controls the call routing platform that receives them to implement a complete end-to-end solution. We, therefore, undertake a holistic review to ensure that any georouting solution deployed is compatible with the needs and systems of the 988 Lifeline, as determined by SAMHSA, and successfully ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 89k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━