States' Interest in VoIP Regulation Is Worrying Providers
California’s continuing interest in VoIP regulation is a concern, and the lack of FCC preemption of state VoIP oversight is proving to be a problem, speakers said Wednesday at a vCon conference about AI and telecom issues. Also at the event, Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) President David Carter said the e-commerce industry, faced with rocketing amounts of “shakedown litigation" about texts sent during quiet hours, is anxiously hoping that the FCC will act soon on the group's 9-month-old petition for a declaratory ruling (see 2503030036). An agency affirmation that prior consumer consent means those texts don’t violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) “should have been a no-brainer,” Carter said.
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Former FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, who's working with EIA on the texting issue (see 2506130013), said text providers will inevitably get sued, given the unintended consequences of the TCPA and the growing number of state mini-TCPAs.
O'Rielly also said California's VoIP approach is "incredibly problematic," and the FCC must preempt state VoIP regulation. While such preemption is sometimes unpopular, VoIP communications are interstate commerce, which is the jurisdiction of the federal government, he said.
Dickinson Wright VoIP lawyer Glenn Richards said that without any sign from the FCC, states could be emboldened to take their own stabs at VoIP regulation. He added that the commission's current proceeding about facilitating a transition to all-IP interconnection for voice services asks a set of "potentially disturbing" questions about whether the agency needs to classify VoIP as a telecommunications service to facilitate imposing interconnection requirements on VoIP providers. The FCC adopted an IP transition NPRM at its October meeting (see 2510280024).
Paula Boyd, Microsoft's senior director of government and regulatory affairs, said policymakers considering VoIP rules need to understand the technology and business models and must be competitively neutral about the various technologies and services.
While there are TCPA restrictions on using rerecorded voice, Boyd said, policymakers looking at AI use in telecom need to balance that with the technology's ability to assist consumers with disabilities.
EIA’s Carter said there’s an impression among state legislators that the FCC isn't going to do enough to protect consumers from unwanted calls and texts, and states must fill that void. However, he said, state regulators lack technical understanding about networks. Carter called on the FCC to do more outreach to state legislators about agency actions so their energies end up focused on fighting crime rather than “confusing and conflicting” regulation.
Carter also said EIA is particularly focused on states’ mini-TCPA laws, trying to ensure that they don’t result in different standards state by state. “There’s nothing more frightening” than individuals providing consent that satisfies federal requirements but then states coming up with their own definitions of consent.
Consultant Angie Kronenberg said that even though FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has voiced approval of Big Tech paying more into USF, comments submitted to the bicameral USF working group show a big divide between ISPs' and Big Tech interests on reforms. There still isn't a consensus plan for how to go after Big Tech, she said, and Carr's public comments about the FCC's limited authority seem to signal that he hopes Congress takes up the issue.
USF reform isn't likely in 2026, Kronenberg added, since it's hard for Congress to undertake big reforms when major elections like the fall midterms are looming.
Robocalls and Fraud
Telecommunications fraud experts said nuisance robocall numbers are declining, but the real success in tackling communications-based fraud will come only when there are strong identity safeguards, such as a certified, encrypted key linked to a number. “We do not have a robocall problem. We have an impersonation problem,” said Numeracle CEO Rebekah Johnson. Identity is the key to tackling fraud, whether it's committed via calls, messaging, social media or email, she said.
Microsoft's Boyd cautioned that while the FCC has talked about marking international traffic as a way of tackling illegal robocalls, that approach could also undermine receipt and use of legitimate traffic coming into the U.S.
Scam robocalls remain a problem, but a fraction of what they once were, said Josh Bercu, executive director of the Industry Traceback Group. Now, scammers are using live agents and AI and making more targeted attacks on individuals, instead of using a shotgun approach of blasting many people with robocalls, he said. Scammers will often use local numbers, since toll-free numbers are heavily policed, he added.
Robocalls are down in large part due to the federal government's focus on technical solutions like stopping traffic at the network level, EIA’s Carter said.
In addition, the telecom and banking industries are increasingly working together on fraud, said Joel Bernstein, Somos' head of U.S. public policy and government relations. If the social media industry also participated, there could be a better effort in figuring out scammers’ vectors of attack, and more could be shut down, he said.