Industry Concerns Won't Likely Derail Gateway Robocall FNPRM

An FCC draft Further NPRM tightening rules for gateway providers to curb illegal robocalls originating abroad is expected to be unanimously approved during the agency’s open meeting Thursday. That's despite some industry concerns about the proposal to pause enforcement of the foreign provider prohibition until a final decision on addressing illegal robocalls originating abroad. The item is expected to be approved without any major revisions to the draft, an FCC official said Friday.

Some industry experts raised concerns about the plan to pause enforcement of the prohibition on U.S.-based providers accepting traffic carrying North American numbering plan numbers received directly from foreign providers not registered in the robocall mitigation database. Domestic voice service and intermediate providers will be allowed to carry such traffic “until that time,” the draft said.

“I’m very concerned to have that deferred,” said CEO David Frankel of teleconferencing service ZipDX. “It’s not that hard” for providers to register in the Database, Frankel said. The FCC “buried” this step in the draft and is “effectively changing the rules, which I don’t believe they can do properly.” The FCC “should enforce every part of the law that it is enabled and authorized to enforce right now,” said U.S. Public Interest Research Group Consumer Watchdog Teresa Murray. Nearly 700 foreign providers have registered in the database and “they don’t necessarily have to register right now,” Murray said. The FCC declined to comment Friday.

The draft proposes that gateway providers be required to implement Stir/Shaken caller ID authentication and perform robocall mitigation on foreign-originated calls to the U.S. It would define a “gateway provider” as “the first U.S.-based intermediate provider” that transmits a foreign-originated call to another provider in the U.S. It “would be helpful to the industry” to seek comment on how to define “U.S.-based” as an intermediate provider physically located in the U.S. or a “U.S.-licensed entity that receives traffic in the foreign country and then transmits it to another, unaffiliated, entity in the United States,” said iBasis, a provider of international internetwork packet exchange, in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 17-59. “Anything along those lines is helpful,” Frankel said, because “these callers are tenacious, and they will work to circumvent whatever rules you make.” IBasis didn’t comment Friday.

Others welcomed the decision to pause enforcement of the prohibition. It’s “a welcome development that should allow industry the necessary time to address this issue in a more comprehensive and thorough manner,” said Voice on the Net, Cloud Communications Alliance, and Incompas in an ex parte letter posted Friday. They urged taking “additional comment from industry to address foreign-originated illegal robocalls.”

An AT&T spokesperson directed us to its ex parte submission posted Friday, which said it backed the draft and “appreciates the FCC’s recognition that further review of the rules is needed so that gateway carriers block only illegal robocalls and not legitimate international calls.” CTIA declined to comment. USTelecom, the registered consortium for the industry-led robocall traceback group, plans to file comments, emailed a spokesperson.