FCC Registry To Boost Provider Accountability in Rural Call Completion

Across the country, Americans depend on reliable phone service to stay in touch with friends and family, conduct business, and access vital public services. Although all Americans should have confidence that calls made to or by them will be completed, for those living in rural or remote areas, too often this is not the case. Whether consumers experience false ring tones, dropped calls, inaccurate caller ID information, or other problems, rural call completion issues can have serious repercussions, potentially impacting quality of life, economic opportunity, and public safety in affected communities.

The actions we take today are the next steps in our ongoing efforts to ensure that calls are indeed completed to all Americans, including those in rural America. With our initial implementation of the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act of 20172 (RCC Act), we adopt rules designed to ensure the integrity of our nation’s telephone network and prevent “unjust or unreasonable discrimination among areas of the United States” in the delivery of telephone service.

Based on the record before us, and guided by the RCC Act provisions, today we adopt rules to establish a registry for intermediate providers and require intermediate providers to register with the Commission before offering to transmit covered voice communications, as well as further measures to augment and bolster the effectiveness of our call completion rules.