Comment Sought on NCIC Bid for FCC Ruling on ICS Follow-Up Text Messages

Comments are due July 7 and replies July 22 on Network Communications International Corp.'s (NCIC) petition for an expedited declaratory ruling, said the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. NCIC is seeking a ruling "that its use of a one-time informational text message to establish a billing relationship with a called party who does not answer or respond to a collect call from an inmate using NCIC’s inmate calling service (ICS) does not require prior express consent from the called party because: (a) such texts are covered by an exemption granted in response to another ICS provider’s request; (b) the text is initiated by inmate callers and not NCIC; and/or (c) the text is not sent by an automatic telephone dialing system (autodialer)," said a bureau public notice Tuesday in docket 02-278. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC rules require express prior consent for nonemergency autodialed, prerecorded or artificial-voice calls to wireless phone numbers, said the PN, which noted the commission defines "calls" to include text messages under the TCPA. "NCIC asserts that allowing it to send a follow-up text message without the called party’s prior express consent when an inmate cannot complete a collect call is consistent with the Commission’s established policies that recognize the difficulties ICS providers face to facilitate calls from inmates," the PN said. "Moreover, NCIC claims that its texting protocol is virtually identical to another ICS provider’s calling protocol that the Commission exempted from the TCPA consent requirement."