FCC Seeks Comment on Combating Rural Call Completion Problems

Continuing its work to improve communications services in rural America, the Federal Communications Commission took additional steps to combat the problem of long-distance calls failing to reach rural communities.

The FCC is seeking comment on rules that would hold phone companies more accountable for ensuring that long-distance calls to rural America get through to a called party. Certain telephone companies that hand off calls to intermediate providers would be required to monitor the performance of these intermediaries and hold them accountable if calls don’t go through. By making long-distance providers accountable for the rural call completion performance of their intermediate providers, this new proposal would more directly and quickly tackle rural call completion problems than the FCC’s current regulations. This solution represents an effective means of improving rural call completion while not unnecessarily burdening providers because it follows industry best practices. The Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks comment on this proposal as well as on proposals to either modify or eliminate the FCC’s current rural call completion data collection and reporting rules.