Industry Asks FCC to Go Easy on New Slamming, Cramming Rules; Consumer Groups Disagree

Industry urged the FCC to tread lightly in bolstering slamming and cramming rules targeting providers making unauthorized changes to consumers' preferred telecom providers or inserting unauthorized charges on phone bills. Major telco, cable and billing interests expressed concerns about potential new regulations teed up in a July NPRM (see 1707130054), while consumer groups were more supportive. Comments were posted in docket 17-169 Wednesday and Thursday. Replies those days in docket 17-97 on a July notice of inquiry (see 1707130054) also saw the telco industry and consumer groups at odds on whether the FCC should mandate a call authentication standards framework.

Industry parties backed efforts against slamming and cramming but voiced resistance to new rules the FCC proposed or floated. AT&T said "aggressive" enforcement, a consumer shift away from stand-alone phone service and a decline in third-party billing "made a substantial dent in combatting slamming and cramming" -- trends that "should continue, if not accelerate." Adding "unwise," "prophylactic" rules could "raise the cost of service or impede consumer choice and competition," the telco said. Verizon said all-distance service reduced consumer exposure and said any rules should be "narrowly tailored" to "limited circumstances" where long-distance consumers actually are at risk.

The FTC backed FCC efforts to identify effective ways to prevent cramming and attached a 2014 mobile cramming report. The trade commission noted it recently returned a record $88 million-plus to AT&T customers in a settlement over mobile cramming, a settlement the communications regulator joined.

Comcast said possible anti-slamming measures "are sweeping and unwarranted" since FCC data indicates slamming complaints in 1998 were about 50 times higher than in 2015 or 2016. "Unnecessary and onerous requirements ... would harm many more customers than they would help," it said.

Consumer groups cited regulatory gaps and urged comprehensive action to "extend the strongest possible protections against these types of fraud to all voice customers," traditional landline, VoIP or wireless. The FCC should include rules banning cramming, misrepresentations in sales calls and most third-party charges, and requiring voice providers to "freeze" the long-distance carrier for all customers by default, said Consumers Union, Consumer Action, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen and Public Knowledge. Change to Win, a labor union federation, backed the FCC rulemaking, saying it agreed existing protections are insufficient.

Comcast said a "default carrier freeze would elongate the number porting process," and additional verification requirements would add delays and costs without benefits. NCTA opposed a "mandatory preferred carrier freeze" and said the third-party verification (TPV) process should be replaced with a requirement that providers "record a customer's request to change" carriers. Telplex suggested new TPV requirements, but it and the California Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies (here) "strongly" opposed requiring such freezes or requiring a carrier losing a customer to "double check" to confirm the decision. The Coalition for a Competitive Telecommunications Market urged "targeted solutions" not "blunt-force regulations" endangering legitimate competition. Billing Service Group North America opposed "a proposal to eliminate or require certification" of TPVs and criticized a "freeze or blocking third-party billing."

USTelecom opposed blocking certain third-party billing by default to reduce slamming-related cramming. It said new rules should target only "knowing misrepresentation" and shouldn't apply to interconnected VoIP, and suggested scrapping "mandatory third-party verification" to "promote cost savings without reducing consumer protection." CTIA said "slam-and-cram" schemes target wireline -- not wireless -- consumers, so new actions "should be limited" to wireline. Sprint said slamming and cramming measures under consideration "are unnecessary or inapplicable" to commercial mobile wireless and interconnected VoIP. The Voice on the Net Coalition opposed applying cramming rules to interconnected VoIP.

WTA said nonmandatory preferred interexchange carrier freezes and permissive double-checking could effectively address slamming in RLEC areas. It backed existing "truth-in-billing" rules against cramming and opposed a proposal to allow customers to opt out of third-party toll billing. NTCA supported new rules against "indefensible practices," such as "misrepresentations" or cramming, but said other FCC proposals were more NOI-like: vague, unsupported by data "and could generate costs that the NPRM admits are undeterminable."

Call Authentication Replies

The wireless industry has been working voluntarily on authentication protocols, traceback, blocking and root cause removal tools, and actions like Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (Shaken) and Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (Stir) mandates "could delay or distract" from that work, CTIA said. With Shaken being a new methodology, more experience is needed before any mandate "is reasonable," CenturyLink said.

The weight of support for implementation of the Shaken-Stir framework is toward the FCC encouraging but not mandating it, USTelecom said. The Consumer Bankers Association said call authentication trust anchor compliance should be voluntary, saying the FCC should offer a safe harbor against Telephone Consumer Protection Act litigation.

The Shaken-Stir model still is under development and has limitations that should stop the FCC from mandating it, Incompas said. Requiring an authentication method that isn't fair and nondiscriminatory could hurt network reliability, it said, saying a mandate also should wait until Shaken-Stir can authenticate international calls in ways akin to domestic ones.

Strictly voluntary Shaken-Stir participation "is insufficient," said the same groups that also backed stronger anti-cramming rules. Consumers Union, Public Citizen, PK and others said phone companies not participating would hurt effectiveness of such a system, and recommended the FCC develop standards that include, at minimum, consumer protections.

There also was a split over whether the North America Numbering Council should be the governing authority, with USTelecom arguing against, saying a governance authority "must be flexible and responsive" and that NANC's subject matter expertise is in such areas as numbering policy. The association said the FCC should limit signing authorities to entities assigned an operating company number. The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions similarly said it was against NANC as governing authority, and recommended itself, as "a multi-stakeholder industry organization," as better suited. CenturyLink backed the idea of a "[request-for-proposal]-type process" to find the appropriate policy administrator.

But NANC as governing authority, plus the pooling administrator as policy administrator, would be the fastest route for deployment, Neustar said, saying FCC oversight over the two lets it participate and ensure broad representation.

Shaken-Stir's immediate effect "is likely to be minimal," since the U.S. is years away from all-IP calling and international traffic "remains a great unknown," Sprint said. Before encouraging or requiring Shaken-Stir, the FCC needs to consider how it will fit with broader anti-robocall efforts, it said. The carrier said Shaken-Stir won't work if it's just a U.S. standard, and it isn't clear what carriers should or can do with authentication information.