Industry, Consumer Groups Clash on Rules for Wireless Subscriber Messages

CTIA told the FCC that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act doesn’t apply to robocalls and robotexts from wireless service providers to their subscribers. Indeed, CTIA added that the FCC has affirmed this "multiple times." However, consumer groups said nothing in the TCPA “justifies special treatment for wireless providers.” Comments were posted Friday in docket 02-278. Commissioners approved an order and Further NPRM in February seeking comment on the wireless provider exemption (see 2402160048).

The messages carriers send their subscribers “provide substantial benefits and serve the public interest” and a recent survey found subscribers want such messages, CTIA said. “The Commission has long recognized the importance to wireless consumers of receiving these updates, and has repeatedly and deliberately reaffirmed this framework over multiple decades -- as has Congress.”

CTIA said carriers' messages include “fraud alerts, significant account change notices, and other privacy/security notifications,” notices of service disruptions and public safety alerts in response to natural disasters, roaming and usage warnings and billing, and payment alerts. “Amending the longstanding framework as proposed in the FNPRM could prevent consumers from receiving these important (and often legally required) messages,” CTIA said.

Although the FCC issued an order in October 1992 allowing a carrier exemption “does not in itself justify the continuation of that exemption,” consumer and public interest groups countered. Wireless providers “deliver a valuable service to their subscribers,” but it’s not more valuable than services delivered by electric and gas companies and other utilities. These companies don’t benefit from an exemption, the groups said.

Wireless providers should be “accountable for their unwanted calls,” the groups said: “Consumers do not like to be the recipients of unstoppable automated calls and texts, regardless of who they are from.” The National Consumer Law Center, National Association of Consumer Advocates, Public Knowledge and U.S. PIRG signed the filing.

The Competitive Carriers Association sided with CTIA. For more than three decades, the FCC and Congress “have affirmed a wireless provider exception, noting the special relationship between wireless providers and their customers,” CCA said: “Messages from wireless providers are not the harmful and harassing automated communications that plague consumers and are the target of the TCPA.”

NCTA stressed that providers aren’t seeking an exemption for marketing calls and that the exemption is “appropriately tailored” to address privacy concerns different types of calls raise. “Like many legitimate businesses, NCTA’s members place calls to their customers to provide them with important, non-marketing service and account-related information, including information related to service appointments, equipment swaps, billing, and outages,” NCTA said.

The wireless carrier exception “is as old as the TCPA itself,” said AT&T. The commission has “repeatedly confirmed its longstanding interpretation that the TCPA’s restrictions do not cover calls and text messages from wireless carriers to their customers when the customer is not charged.”

Verizon warned it would be difficult to parse which messages should be transmitted to consumers. “It would be a grave mistake to assume that importing the mitigation framework that the Commission has applied to other types of senders -- granting the ability to send a one-time clarification message to the subscriber asking them to explain what they want to opt out of -- would work in this context,” Verizon said: The carrier noted there are hundreds of different types of messages a wireless subscriber “may need from their provider under certain (albeit rare) circumstances.”

The National Lifeline Association noted that carriers have a special relationship with their customers, which the rules should recognize. Wireless providers are “in a unique position to oversee their subscribers’ various activities and to make sure they are sent crucial, time-sensitive information,” the association said. This includes information that helps keep subscribers from inadvertently losing service and “the benefits that make it affordable.”