May 21

May 21 Robocall FNPRM: FCC Considers Accelerating STIR/SHAKEN Deadline By One Year For Some Small Carriers

Robocalls, Rate-of-Return, STIR/SHAKEN, ILEC, FCC

May 21, 2021 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a Third Further Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) that considers revising the STIR/SHAKEN deadline for some small providers.[1] Specifically, in the FNPRM, the FCC proposes accelerating the date by which small voice providers that originate an especially large amount of call traffic must implement the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework to June 30, 2022.

Comments are due on or before 30 days after the date the FNPRM is published in the Federal Register, and reply comments are due 60 days after publication.

Pursuant to the First and Second Call ID Authentication Orders, voice service providers must implement STIR/SHAKEN in the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their voice networks by June 30, 2021, while small providers – those with less than 100,000 total subscriber lines – have until June 30, 2023 to meet the requirement.

However, the FCC now says there is “new evidence indicating that certain small voice service providers are originating a high and increasing share of illegal robocalls relative to their subscriber base.” Here’s a piece of evidence cited by the FCC in the FNPRM:

A March 2021 report released by Transaction Network Services, a provider of call analytics, found that the problem of robocalls originated by certain smaller voice service providers has gotten worse: by the end of 2020, almost 95% of high risk calls originate from non-Tier-1 telephone resources, up 3% from last year.[2]

Accordingly, the FCC proposes to shorten by one year the extension for small voice service providers that originate an especially large number of calls, so that such providers must implement STIR/SHAKEN in the IP portions of their networks no later than June 30, 2022. Comment is sought on the general proposal.

Determining Which Small Providers Are Most Likely A Source Of Illegal Robocalls

The FCC is seeking comment on how to define the subset of small voice service providers that must meet the accelerated deadline, such as by including those that:

originate a significant number of calls per day for any single line on average,
receive more than half their revenue from customers purchasing non-mass market services,
offer certain service features to customers commonly used for unlawful robocalls, such as the ability to display any number in the called party’s caller ID, or to upload and broadcast a prerecorded message,
offer specific implementations of customized caller ID display, such as area code or neighborhood spoofing (i.e., spoofing the area code or NXX of the called party), or
offer customers autodialing functionality.

Comment Sought On Other Issues

Additionally, the FCC has asked for comment on whether the proportion of robocall traffic originated by small voice service providers has increased since the adoption of the Second Caller ID Authentication Report and Order and, if so, whether it is because larger voice service providers are implementing STIR/SHAKEN in anticipation of the June 30, 2021, deadline, leading callers originating unlawful robocalls to migrate to different networks,

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[1] Call Authentication Trust Anchor, WC Docket No 17-97, Third Further Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 20-62 (May 21, 2021), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-21-62A1.pdf.

[2] FNPRM at ¶9.