Keep Stir/Shaken Extension for Carriers Acting in Good Faith, Industry Urges

The Competitive Carriers Association and NTCA urged caution as the FCC considers how to tighten secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) rules, with an eye on moving up by a year the June 30, 2023, deadline for smaller providers to implement the technology (see 2105200072). Replies were posted Tuesday in docket 17-97. ‘’Be careful not to inadvertently penalize carriers acting in good faith and earnestly seeking robocall mitigation solutions for their consumers,” CCA said: “Additional time to implement STIR/SHAKEN is vital for small carriers. The Commission should adopt an approach that is most likely to address the most culpable parties without inadvertently sweeping in those providers operating in good faith.” The record supports targeting “bad actor” providers that “knowingly enable (or turn a blind eye towards) parties using voice service to generate illegal robocalls and ‘spoofing’ caller-ID information,” said NTCA: “The record also highlights the importance of avoiding overly-inclusive and burdensome proposals that would sweep in innocent voice providers.” USTelecom supports keeping the current deadline for facilities-based providers, but shortening it for others. “Should the Commission move forward with the proposal, it should allow such nonfacilities based providers to seek the full two-year extension based on the same challenges the Commission cited when it first adopted the small provider extension,” the group said. “There can be no justification for imposing an accelerated deadline on small voice providers that are not prone to originating large volumes of illegal robocalls and that are operating in good faith to meet the June 30, 2023 deadline,” said ACA Connects. The rules should be “narrowly tailored to capture the most likely sources of illegal robocalls,” NCTA said.