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jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with PROPOSALS3

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 111 / Friday, June 11, 2021 / Proposed Rules comment on this analysis, including our preliminary assumption that text-to-911
software and equipment can be leveraged for texting to 988. Do commenters agree with CTIA that there are significant technical and policy differences between 988 and 911
service, and if so, how might those differences impact our evaluation?
Furthermore, we seek comment on whether cost estimates for PSAPs from the Text-to-911 proceeding reflect an appropriate estimate for costs to the Lifeline or Veterans Crisis Line. Are there other costs borne by the Lifeline or Veterans Crisis Line needed to implement text-to-988 service?
65. We preliminarily assume that some costs may be streamlined or reduced due to the previous implementation of text-to-911, which may be leveraged to facilitate text-to-988
capability and seek comment on this assumption. As a result, we anticipate that costs for covered text providers to implement text-to-988 may be less than what we estimate above and seek comment on this finding. We further seek comment on what extent covered text providers may rely upon existing text-to-911 services and how to quantify the costs needed to upgrade such systems to support text-to-988.
66. Deterring suicide has benefits that simply cannot be reduced to numbers saving lives has value beyond measure.
While recognizing this fact, to illustrate how the benefits of our proposal relate to the more aptly quantified costs, we attempt to estimate the quantifiable value of suicide prevention using a measure of collective willingness to pay.
We propose calculating that the level of suicide prevention needed to generate benefits exceeding our preliminary estimate of $27 million in text-to-988
costs is a total of four suicides avoided over five years. Specifically, the level of teen suicide prevention needed to generate benefits exceeding $27 million is one per 2,821, and the level of suicide prevention among individuals with disabilities to generate benefits exceeding $27 million is one per 3,275.
Even assuming that text-to-988
prevented no suicides in its inaugural year as the service rolled out but prevented one suicide in each of the ensuing four years, measured in terms of the publics willingness to pay for that mortality reduction, the present value of the benefit would be $30.39 million, more than three million dollars greater than the total cost. The present value would be an uneven stream of payments of $9.6 million $0 in Year 1 + $9.6
million per year in Year 2 through Year 5 at a 7% discount rate. We seek comment on our analysis.

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67. Using break-even points and highly attainable suicide reductions that are well below those suggested by survey studies, we estimate that the benefits of text-to-988 will far exceed the costs. Pooling teenagers and individuals with disabilities, we estimate that text-to-988 would need to prevent one suicide out of every six thousand in order to break-even in the first five years of deployment. Slightly raising the bar to preventing one suicide per one thousand, we further estimate that the more than $157.5 million estimated benefit from modestly reducing suicides in two vulnerable populations far exceeds the text-to-988
deployment costs of $19.6 million incurred by CMRS and interconnected text providers. Even if sizable Lifeline deployment costs are added, increasing estimated total cost to nearly $27
million, the estimated benefits of textto-988 remain greater by a multiple of nearly six. Over ten years, the benefits rise to $269.8 million, exceeding costs by a multiple of nearly ten. We seek comment on these estimates. We also seek comment on the methods and underlying benefits and costs estimates, including those submitted by third parties, used to arrive at our overall proposed conclusion.
II. Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis 1. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended RFA, the Commission has prepared this Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis IRFA of the possible significant economic impact on small entities by the policies and rules proposed in this Implementation of the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act of 2018 further notice of proposed rulemaking FNPRM. The Commission requests written public comments on this IRFA. Comments must be identified as responses to the IRFA and must be filed by the deadlines for comments provided on the first page of the further notice of proposed rulemaking. The Commission will send a copy of the further notice of proposed rulemaking, including this IRFA, to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration SBA. In addition, the further notice of proposed rulemaking and IRFA or summaries thereof will be published in the Federal Register.
A. Need for, and Objectives of, the Proposed Rules 2. In this FNPRM, the Commission proposes and seeks comment on requiring CMRS providers and providers of interconnected text
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messaging services that enable consumers to send text messages to, and receive text messages from, the PSTN
covered text providers to enable delivery of text messages to 988. The Commission proposes to require that covered text providers route 988 text messages to the National Suicide Prevention Lifelines Lifeline 10-digit number, currently 18002738255
TALK. The Commission believes these proposed rules will expand the availability of mental health and crisis counseling resources to Americans who suffer from depressive or suicidal thoughts, by allowing individuals in crisis to reach the Lifeline by texting 988.
B. Legal Basis 3. The legal basis for any action that may be taken pursuant to this FNPRM
is contained in sections 201, 251, 301, 303, 307, 309, and 316 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 201, 251, 301, 303, 307, 309, 316.
C. Description and Estimate of the Number of Small Entities to Which the Proposed Rules Will Apply 4. The RFA directs agencies to provide a description of, and where feasible, an estimate of the number of small entities that may be affected by the proposed rules and by the rule revisions on which the Notice seeks comment, if adopted. The RFA generally defines the term small entity as having the same meaning as the terms small business, small organization, and small governmental jurisdiction.
In addition, the term small business has the same meaning as the term small-business concern under the Small Business Act. A small-business concern is one which: 1 Is independently owned and operated; 2
is not dominant in its field of operation;
and 3 satisfies any additional criteria established by the SBA.
5. Small Businesses, Small Organizations, Small Governmental Jurisdictions. Our actions, over time, may affect small entities that are not easily categorized at present. We therefore describe here, at the outset, three broad groups of small entities that could be directly affected herein. First, while there are industry specific size standards for small businesses that are used in the regulatory flexibility analysis, according to data from the Small Business Administrations SBA
Office of Advocacy, in general a small business is an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. These types of small businesses represent 99.9% of all businesses in the United
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