Today:  Louisiana Enacts Amended Caller ID Spoofing Bill, FCC 8YY Access Changes, FCC Slamming and Cramming Rules, FCC Toll-free Texting 

Louisiana Enacts Amended Caller ID Spoofing Bill

The Governor of Louisiana has signed a bill into law that: revises provisions relating to caller ID spoofing and provides for injunctive relief, penalties, and damages.  Now, the amended law expands the definition of an unlawful act to include circumstances when someone hides their true identity by modifying caller ID information with the intent to cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value to the possible offenses.  The amended law also adds a cause of action that a person or entity can bring against someone who violated the law.  Finally, the amended law changes the possible civil penalty to $10,000 per violation whereas it was $5,000 per violation before. The amended law will become effective August 1, 2018. 

FCC 8YY Access Charges

At its meeting this morning, the FCC voted to seek comment on reforms to increase efficiency and fairness in the system governing intercarrier payments for toll free calling, and to eliminate the financial incentive for abusive calling practices, including fraudulent or otherwise unnecessary robocalling to toll free numbers.  The FCC will seek comment on transitioning all interstate and intrastate originating toll free end office and tandem switching and transport charges to a “bill-and-keep” regime over a three-year period.  The Notice also seeks comment on: (1) a proposal to cap toll-free database query rates on a nationwide basis at the lowest rate currently charged by any price cap local exchange carrier and limit database charges to a single charge per call; and (2) other issues related to reforming toll free access charges, including the effect that moving most originating access charges for toll free calls to bill-and-keep will have on consumers, toll free subscribers, and carriers, as well as the best way for carriers to recover legitimate revenues they may lose as a result of the proposed reforms.

FCC Slamming and Cramming Rules

At its meeting this morning the FCC voted to adopt new rules to protect against slamming and cramming.  The new rules include: (1) a ban on misrepresentations made during sales calls and provide that such material misrepresentations invalidate any authorization given by a consumer to switch telephone companies; (2) an explicit prohibition against placing unauthorized charges on consumers’ phone bills; and (3) a new rule stating that carriers that abuse the third party verification process will be suspended from using that process for five years. Suspended companies will have to use other approved methods to verify switches. This will serve as a disincentive to carriers abusing the system and create an extra check on carriers with a history of misuse.   The FCC also acted to improve the efficiency of the third-party verification process by eliminating the requirement that a phone company must obtain the authorization of a consumer for each service being sold—a time-consuming step that the FCC found can confuse consumers.

FCC Toll-free Texting

The FCC also voted to adopt a Declaratory Ruling and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to prevent the fraudulent use of toll-free numbers in text messaging.  Among other things, the FCC clarified that:

• A text messaging provider may not text-enable a toll-free number without first obtaining authorization from the subscriber for that number
• A messaging provider may not text-enable a toll-free number that is not yet assigned to a subscriber
• Messaging providers must disable toll-free texting upon request by the subscriber

The FCC seeks comment on:

• A proposal to require a toll-free subscriber to inform the RespOrg, that the subscriber has authorized its toll-free number for text messages;
• A proposal that the RespOrg must reflect the subscriber’s authorization to text-enable its toll-free number in the toll-free Service Management System (SMS) Database
• A proposal requiring that a messaging provider obtain the subscriber’s authorization for text-enabling a number through the RespOrg.

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 The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.