For years it has felt like the Czar was the only one getting anything done on the robocall problem.
Congressional efforts have been, well, silly:
And past FCC administrations have been less than helpful–seemingly more focused on empowering plaintiff’s lawyers to sue legitimate American businesses than targeting the bad guys overseas.
Two years ago I penned an article laying out a three-part groundwork to end the robocall epidemic. As arguably the best known telecom lawyer in the world I was uniquely situated to provide this comprehensive review.
And… crickets.
Well finally things are changing. But only maybe.
Both the FCC and Congress have moved toward adopting at least part of my plan– ending the scourge of foreign call center traffic.
As I wrote back in 2023:
Critically there is no law that bans, limits, or otherwise directs carriers in terms of how and when they are supposed to prevent traffic from entering the network in the first place.
Again, that may be about to change.
Again, finally.
The FCC’s new NPRM puts together a very nice package of options for dealing with foreign-originated scam and spam calls.
My personal favorite is this line at paragraph 74:
We further propose to require voice service providers that use reasonable analytics to block calls to include whether a call originated from outside of the United States as a factor in their analytics.
Most people will overlook this sentence, but what it is saying is carriers must take the foreign-source of a call into account when determining whether or not to block calls. This is HUGE and will empower carriers to stat throttling overseas traffic which they have never done before!
Really nice (potential) move by the Commission here.
Additionally, the Commission is (finally) moving to better understand how foreign call centers are getting access to our network to make illegal calls:
We seek comment on how to better identify the source of unlawful calls that originate from outside of the United States. In this context, the source of an unlawful call includes the country from which the call originated, the originating voice service provider, and the maker of the call.
Again, love. But also–its about freaking time guys.
The rest of paragraphs 80 and 81 make it clear the FCC is really looking to understand the point-of-entry for illegal foreign calls and I just love it. Late. But needed!
Meanwhile the Commissions is also looking to empower consumers to understand what calls are originating from foreign call centers.
Today foreign call centers can use American numbers–often supplied by American lead generators working with American VOIP or CPaaS companies–to contact American consumers.
That means a guy in Pakistan might call you from your own area code.
Tricky.
But if the FCC has its way that will change very soon. Specifically consumers will need to be notified when a call is coming from an overseas call center:
We propose to require providers to identify calls that originate from outside of the United States to transmit that information over the entire call path, and to transmit to consumer handsets an indicator that the call originated from outside of the United States whenever they know or have a reasonable basis to know that a call originated from outside of the United States. Specifically, we propose to require gateway providers to mark calls that originate from outside of the United States, intermediate providers to transmit that information to downstream providers, and the terminating voice service provider to transmit to consumers’ handsets an indicator that a call originated outside of the United States when they know or have reason to know that a call originated from outside of the United States, such as when a call has been marked as having originated outside of the United States by an gateway provider.
Gorgeous, sexy, gorgeous, sexy, gorgeous.
I know that was a bit long, but what it means is carriers may soon have to display a symbol of some kind (or maybe words) that tell a consumer a call is foreign-originated so they know before they pick it up.
This is arguably even better consumer empowerment than the recent Congressional effort–the Keeping Call Centers in America Act– that would allow consumers to press a button to be transferred to an American call center when they encounter a foreign caller.
That’s a positive step, but informing consumers of the foreign traffic– and empowering carriers to block it–is definitely better.
The real power in these changes is that it will force American companies to put less reliance on foreign call centers– who are unpredictable and often engage in horrible robocall tactics. This is an undeniable win for the American consumer.
And what I like best about all of this– it is perfectly constitutional. No censorship. No viewpoint limitations. Hell we aren’t even limiting speech by Americans–except through the use of a foreign-originated call–and that’s a time/place/manner restriction obviously.
So this is all great in my view.
For more information on the FCC’s proposed new changes check out our awesome webinar on our FAST-GROWING YouTube Channel:
Chat soon.