FCC OKs 4-0 Stir/Shaken FNPRM; No Major Changes

FCC members vowed to ramp up pressure on robocallers, approving a Further NPRM 4-0 Thursday proposing to tighten secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) rules, as expected (see 2105180040). Officials told journalists there were minor tweaks to the draft and no substantial changes.

Major carriers must implement Stir/Shaken by June 30 in the IP portions of their networks, and providers with 100,000 subscriber lines got an extension until June 30, 2023, the FCC said: The FNPRM seeks comment on moving up that to June 30, 2022, and “on how best to identify and define the subset of small voice service providers that that pose a heightened risk of originating an especially large amount of illegal robocall traffic.”

“We recently discovered that some of these smaller companies are pumping large volumes of traffic onto our networks and a lot of it looks suspiciously like robocalls,” said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “It’s time to change course,” he said: “We propose to cut back on the extension for smaller providers that are sending these junk calls.”

Commissioner Brendan Carr didn’t seek “significant changes,” he told reporters. “When you look at all the efforts that we have engaged in to address robocalls, this ultimately is going to be part of the important long-term solution.” Call authentication will “be the long pole in the tent when it comes to hopefully breaking the back of robocalls,” he said.

“When Stir/Shaken is in place, carriers can verify that callers are who they say they are,” said acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “That helps stop spoofing and the scams it can foster,” she said. “During the last several years, the number of robocalls skyrocketed,” she said: “We need to do more to stop these annoying and abusive calls.”