A Look At Communications Industry New Year's Resolutions: Reduce Illegal Robocalls

Earlier this year, we were asked to suggest 2021 resolutions for clients in the telecommunications, media, and technology industries. We developed several that should guide industry participants to improve their compliance and services to customers. Research suggests that February typically is the month when New Year's resolutions fail, so we decided to take a look at our resolutions and offer some suggestions for making these stick.

To start, here is the first resolution we suggested for the industry:

Resolution for Voice Service Providers: Resolve to reduce illegal robocalls. Voice service providers long have supported the FCC's ongoing efforts to target bad actors sending illegal and fraudulent robocalls, but in 2021, each carrier should resolve to do its part individually in the battle to stop illegal calls. All voice service providers must implement the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication framework by June 30, 2021 and should develop an effective robocall