USTelecom Wants Tweaks to FCC's Draft Stir/Shaken Order

USTelecom representatives sought clarification on two aspects of the draft Stir/Shaken order, scheduled for a vote at the FCC commissioners’ March 16 meeting (see 2302230059), in calls with the Wireline Bureau and staff for the four commissioners. The draft “recognizes the role that contracts will play in intermediate providers’ compliance with the new signing requirement,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-97: “Consistent with the Draft Order’s rejection of a strict liability standard, the Commission should make explicit that providers are deemed in compliance when they take such steps and have no reason to know, and do not know, that their upstream provider is sending unsigned traffic it originated.” The draft “properly limits mandated disclosures in Robocall Mitigation Plans to ‘formal actions or investigations … with findings of actual or suspected wrongdoing,’” USTelecom said. “To reduce uncertainty regarding the actions and investigations that trigger the requirement, the Commission should make clear that the formal actions and investigations also must be public,” the group said. David Frankel, CEO of conference call provider ZipDX, reported on a call with Wireline Bureau staff. “I did not ask for any new rules,” Frankel said: “Rather, I asked that the Commission take this opportunity to cite for the larger provider community how they might live up to their obligation to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent their networks from being used to facilitate illegal calling.”