Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Pre-texting and CPNI

"The FCC last week released a report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking that is meant to address the practice of "pretexting" by adopting additional safeguards to protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI) collected by carriers. The Commission's action was in response to data brokers that obtain unauthorized access to CPNI and sell the private and confidential information." [source = COMPTEL]

The funny thing is that the RBOC's already have strict guidelines on the use of CPNI. Agents are tested on the guidelines annually and any infractions can lead to dismissal. However, the internal employees have a looser interpretation of the rules as well as unlimited access to the info.

The net effect of this order has been to mess up joint ventures between Sprint-Nextel and the MSO's. It seems the government doesn't like Sprint -- wouldn't let it merge with MCI in 2002; no billion dollar gov't contract; and now this.

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