FCC Proposes Accelerating the STIR/SHAKEN Deadline For Certain Small Providers

In a previous order, the FCC granted small voice service providers, defined as those with 100,000 or fewer voice subscriber lines, an automatic, blanket two-year extension of the June 30, 2021 deadline for implementing STIR/SHAKEN.  According to the Commission, new evidence suggests that a “subset of small voice providers appears to be originating a large and increasing quantity of illegal robocalls.”  The FCC thus proposes to shorten the deadline extension from two years, until June 2023, to one year, until June 2022, for this subset of providers, and is seeking comment on the proposal. The initial comment deadline is July 9, 2021 and reply comments are due on August 9, 2021.

The proposal would primarily affect small VoIP providers that serve enterprise customers that generate substantial amounts of outbound calls.  Deadline extensions provided for other classes of providers, such as those for providers unable to obtain tokens to sign calls or for TDM providers, are unaffected, even for small providers that qualify for these extensions. The FCC, however, seeks comment on the issue. It is possible that the extension for providers unable to obtain a token (e.g., because they do not have OCNs) may be modified for small providers.

The FCC is very likely to adopt this proposal. They key question is how to identify this subset of small providers. The FCC seeks comments on several criteria that either alone or in combination would identify the small providers subject to the accelerated deadline. These include:

• Small providers that originate an unusually high number of calls per day on a single line, for example 500 calls per day for any single line on average;
• Small providers that receive more than half of their revenue from customers purchasing services that are not mass-market services, in other words business customers;
• Other possible criteria such as offering features commonly used for “unlawful” robocalling, the relative proportion of outbound to inbound calls, evidence of facilitating illegal traffic or failing to cooperate with traceback requests.

Please contact the regulatory affairs committee if you have any questions.