FCC Proposes Earlier Caller ID Authentication Deadline for Small Voice Service Providers

The commission is seeking comment on moving the deadline for additional providers to June 30, 2022. The deadline for most providers is June 30, 2021.

At its May meeting, the Federal Communications Commission approved a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) seeking comment on shortening the amount of time afforded to certain small voice service providers for implementing Caller ID authentication using the STIR/SHAKEN framework, according to a news release .

As a result, the deadline for those providers is now proposed to be June 30, 2022.

Implementation of caller ID authentication technology—specifically, the framework known as STIR/SHAKEN—will reduce the effectiveness of illegal spoofing, allow law enforcement to identify bad actors more easily, and help voice service providers identify calls with illegally spoofed caller ID information before those calls reach their subscribers, according to the FCC.

The FNRPM approved May 20 is “to fight illegal robocalls by proposing to accelerate the date by which small voice service providers that originate an especially large amount of call traffic must implement the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework,” according to the meeting notice.

According to the FNPRM notice, the FCC is requiring most voice service providers to implement this technology in their Internet Protocol (IP) networks by June 30, 2021. The FCC granted some providers— including smaller voice service providers with 100,000 or fewer subscriber lines—until June 30, 2023, to implement the technology.

“New evidence suggests, however, that a subset of small voice service providers appears to be originating a large and increasing quantity of illegal robocalls,” according to the FCC.

In addition to the shorter deadline for STIR/SHAKEN, the FNRPM would:

• Seek comment on how best to identify and define the subset of small voice service providers that are at a heightened risk of originating an especially large amount of illegal robocall traffic; and
• Seek comment on whether to adopt additional measures, including data submissions, to facilitate oversight to ensure that small voice service providers subject to a shortened deadline implement STIR/SHAKEN in a timely manner.