Achieving 100% Wireless Handset Model Hearing Aid Compatibility

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 20</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 23-388; FCC 24-112; FR ID 327224]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Achieving 100% Wireless Handset Model Hearing Aid Compatibility</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; announcement of effective date; correction. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Communications Commission (Commission) announces that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved, for a period of three years, information collections associated with the certain rules adopted in the Achieving 100% Wireless Handset Model Hearing Aid Compatibility Report and Order, FCC 24-112. This announcement also corrects a typographical error in the final rules. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The rule amendments contained in 47 CFR 20.19(b)(3)(iii), (f), (h), and (i), published at 89 FR 89832, November 13, 2024, with a Correction published at 89 FR 105473, December 27, 2024, are effective on January 26, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information, contact Cathy Williams, at (202) 418-2918 or via email: <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This document announces that on May 7, 2025, OMB approved, for a period of three years, the information collection requirements contained in the Commission's Report and Order, FCC 24-112, published at 89 FR 89832, November 13, 2024, with a Correction published at 89 FR 105473, December 27, 2024. The OMB Control Number for this information collection is 3060-0999. The Commission publishes this document as an announcement of the effective dates of the information collection requirements and to correct a typographic error in the final rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3507), the Commission is notifying the public that it received OMB approval on May 7, 2025, for the information collection requirements contained in the revisions at 47 CFR 20.19(b)(3)(iii), (f), (h), and (i) under OMB Control Number 3060-0999. Under 5 CFR part 1320, an agency may not conduct or sponsor a collection of information unless it displays a current, valid OMB Control Number. No person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act that does not display a current, valid OMB Control Number. The foregoing notice is required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13, October 1, 1995, and 44 U.S.C. 3507. The total annual reporting burdens and costs for the respondents are as follows: <E T="03">OMB Control No.:</E> 3060-0999. <E T="03">Title:</E> Hearing Loss Compatible Wireless Handsets Section 20.19 and Hearing Aid Compatibility Act. <E T="03">Form Numbers:</E> FCC Form 655 and 855. <E T="03">Type of Review:</E> Revision to the currently approved collection. <E T="03">Respondents:</E> Business or other for-profit entities. <E T="03">Number of Respondents:</E> 934 respondents; 934 responses. <E T="03">Estimated Time per Response:</E> 13.92 hours per response (average). <E T="03">Frequency of Response:</E> On occasion and annual reporting requirements, recordkeeping requirements, and third-party disclosure requirements. <E T="03">Obligation to Respond:</E> Required to obtain or retain benefits. Statutory authority for this information collection is contained in 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 157, 160, 201, 202, 214, 301, 303, 308, 309(j), 310 and 610 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. <E T="03">Total Annual Burden:</E> 12,998 hours. <E T="03">Total Annual Cost:</E> No cost. <E T="03">Needs and Uses:</E> This information collection relates to the Commission's Hearing Loss Compatible Wireless Handsets rules at section 20.19 of the Commission's rules. This revision is necessary to implement the final rules that the Commission adopted on October 17, 2024, in a Report and Order, WT Docket No. 23-388, FCC 24-112, and that the Commission released on October 18, 2024. This Report and Order delayed until OMB approval the following amendments to section 20.19: (1) adding paragraph (b)(3)(iii); (2) revising the heading of paragraph (f); (3) adding paragraph (f)(3); (4) revising paragraph (h); (5) redesignating paragraph (i)(4) as paragraph (i)(6); and (6) adding new paragraph (i)(4) and paragraph (i)(5). The revisions that the Commission adopted to these sections contain new or modified information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. This document is consistent with the Report and Order, which stated that the Commission would publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing OMB approval and the effective date of the information collection requirements contained in these sections. The final rules that the Commission adopted require all future wireless handset models to be hearing aid compatible. These revised rules ensure that consumers with hearing loss will have equal access to the same handset models as consumers without hearing loss. In order to ensure compliance with the 100% hearing aid compatiblity requirement, the Commission adopted a Bluetooth equipment certification requirement and updated labeling, website posting, and annual handset manufacturers and service provider certification requirements. In addition, the Commission eliminated outdated information collection requirements, including labeling, website posting, and certification requirements, as well as eliminating all record retention requirements. The elimination of these requirements significantly reduces regulatory burden and cost for handset manufacturers and service providers and results in an information collection that is based on minimually necessary requirements and tied to specific statutory provisions. The revised hearing aid compatiblility rules include a requirement that a certain number of handset models that handset manufacturers and service providers offer for sale or use in the United States meet Bluetooth coupling requirements. This Bluetooth coupling requirement will benefit consumers by ensuring more universal connectivity between handset models and hearing aids, including over-the-counter hearing aids, and reduces the issue of certain handset models only being able to pair with certain hearing aids. In order to ensure compliance with this new Bluetooth coupling requirement, the Commisison adopted the recommendation of the Hearing Aid Compatibility Task Force (HAC Task Force) and Samsung that handset manufacturers be required to submit a sworn declaration attesting to a new handset model's complaince with this pairing requirement. This attestation requirement is contained in section 20.19(b)(3)(iii) of the rules the Commission adopted and requires handset manufacturers to provide: (1) the specific Bluetooth coupling standard included in each handset model; (2) that the relevant handset model has been tested to ensure compliance with the designated Bluetooth coupling standard; and (3) after the transition to a non-proprietary Bluetooth coupling requirement, that the included Bluetooth coupling technology is consistent with certain Bluetooth functionality requirements. This attestation requirement was adopted pursuant to section 710(c) of the Communications Act which requires the Commission to establish or approve such technical standards as are required to ensure the compatibility of handsets models with hearing aids. With respect to package labeling requirements, the Commission decided to maintain the requirement that the external packaging of a handset model indicate that the handset model is hearing aid compatible, and provide the handset model's conversational gain with and without hearing aids, if the handset model is certified as hearing aid-compatible under a standard that includes volume control requirements. The Commission also required a handset model's external packaging to indicate whether the handset model meets telecoil or Bluetooth coupling requirements or both, and in the case of Bluetooth coupling, which Bluetooth coupling technology the handset model includes. The Commission continued to allow handset manufacturers and service providers to design their own printed package labels as long as the labels include the required information. These external package label requirements ensure that the most pertinent information appears on the outside of the package and allows consumers to compare handset models by comparing package labels. The Commission updated its internal package labeling requirements and removed outdated requirements. A handset model's internal packaging must include information on the hearing aid compatiblity settings of the handset model and how consumers can turn these settings on and off. In addition, the Commission eliminated the requirement that package inserts and user manuals must provide the M/T ratings of handset models certified under the 2011 ANSI Standard or older ANSI standards or provide an explanation of the ANSI M/T rating system. The Commission regonized that the new ANSI technical standard used for certifying handset models as hearing aid-compatible no longer utilizes the M/T rating system. The revised internal packaging requirements allow consumers who are interested in more detailed information about a handset model's hearing aid compatibility then is provide on the external label to find this additional information in a handset model's package insert or user manual. The revised labeling requirements are in section 20.19(f)(1) and (2) of the rules the Commission adopted. These rules are consistent with section 710(d) of the Communications Act, which ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━