Implementation of the National Suicide Hotline Act of 2018

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket No. 18-336; FCC 24-111; FR ID 260903]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Implementation of the 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 and seeks comment on requiring covered text providers, including wireless providers, to support georouting to ensure that the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (988 Lifeline or Lifeline) may route covered 988 text messages to appropriate local crisis centers. Covered 988 text messages are currently routed to crisis centers using information conveyed by the number assigned to a help-seeker's device, such as an area code, which may not match the text user's physical location. To better connect 988 text users with critical local intervention services, the Commission proposes to require covered text providers to send georouting data to the 988 Lifeline to the same extent that they are required to send covered 988 text messages to the Lifeline. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before December 20, 2024, and reply comments are due on or before January 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by WC Docket No. 18-336, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Federal Communications Commission's Website: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the FCC to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530 or TTY: 202-418-0432. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Merry Wulff, Attorney Advisor, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">Merry.Wulff@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">Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</E> ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ) in WC Docket No. 18-336, FCC 24-111, adopted October 17, 2024, and released October 18, 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-24-111A1.pdf.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> The <E T="03">FNPRM</E> may contain proposed new and revised information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and 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 (Pub. L. 104-13). In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-198) <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comment Filing Procedures</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">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 hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <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). <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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Ex Parte Rules</HD> This proceeding in this <E T="03">FNPRM</E> 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 § 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by § 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">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act</HD> The Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act (Pub. L. 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/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <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 the <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">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</HD> 1. Texting is an important mode of communication to the 988 Lifeline and is the preferred means of communicating among certain demographic groups, many of whom are at increased risk for mental health crises. In this <E T="03">FNPRM,</E> we propose to require that covered text providers support georouting to ensure that the 988 Lifeline may route covered 988 text messages to the appropriate local crisis center to enhance the support and resources available to text users in crisis. We also tentatively conclude that, at a minimum, Commercial Mobile Radio Service providers must support georouting for S ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━