Today, the FCC met for the April Open Commission Meeting where the group discussed several issues, including reviewing the guidelines for blocking robocalls. That proposal was approved by Chairman Carr, Commissioners Starks, Simington, and Gomez.
The robocall agenda item came from a proposal saying that the FCC has “been at the forefront of efforts to protect the American public from illegal robocalls.” The committee discussed the current standardsincluding STIR/SHAKEN which allows providers to check that a caller’s phone number matches the caller ID information, cutting down on spoofed calls. STIR/SHAKEN only works on IP networks, so calls made from non-IP networks can get around the rules.
Today’s vote seeks to end delays in the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act’s deadline for carriers to implement an authentication framework for non-IP calls to work toward eliminating spammy robocalls.
In a notice about the approval, the FCC writes that “the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted today seeks to establish criteria for evaluating whether frameworks meet the TRACED Act standards, and it posits that two existing frameworks meet those standards while taking further comment on a third.
Additionally, the FCC will require providers to certify that they are meeting guidelines regularly. The letter notes that “if adopted as
final rules, providers would have two years to comply.”
You can read the full proposal here.