Call Authentication Trust Anchor

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 64</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket No. 17-97; FCC 25-25; FR ID 298605]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Call Authentication Trust Anchor</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes to require that providers that continue to rely on non-IP networks implement non-IP caller ID authentication frameworks, including proposing to develop criteria for evaluating whether non-IP caller ID authentication frameworks are developed and reasonably available, as required by the TRACED Act, and proposing to conclude that certain existing frameworks satisfy those requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before July 16, 2025, and reply comments are due on or before August 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments, identified by WC Docket No. 17-97, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS): <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/. See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings,</E> 63 FR 24121 (1998). • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. <E T="03">All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission.</E> • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">Accessible formats.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information about the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), contact Chris Laughlin, Deputy Division Chief, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">Chris.Laughlin@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Nicole Ongele at (202) 418-2991. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">NPRM,</E> FCC 25-25, in WC Docket No. 17-97, adopted on April 28, 2025, and released on April 29, 2025. The complete text of this document is available for download at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-25A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act:</E> The <E T="03">NPRM</E> may contain proposed new and revised information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements described in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules:</E> The proceeding the <E T="03">NPRM</E> initiates shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with Section 1.1206(b) of the Commission's rules. In proceedings governed by Section 1.49(f) of the Commission's rules or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must, when feasible, be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> We propose to conclude that effective non-IP caller ID authentication frameworks are developed and reasonably available, and therefore propose to mandate that voice service providers, gateway providers, and non-gateway intermediate providers that have not upgraded their networks to IP implement one or more non-IP caller ID authentication frameworks in their non-IP networks by a date certain. Although § 4(b)(1)(B) of the TRACED Act applies to “provider[s] of voice service” and defines “voice service” to include any service that is “interconnected with the public switched telephone network and that furnishes voice communications to an end user,” 47 U.S.C. 227b(a)(2), the Commission has adopted rules that also apply caller ID authentication obligations to gateway providers and non-gateway intermediate providers, relying on its authority under sections 251(e) and 227(e) of the Communications Act. In this item, we propose amending certain rules that are currently applicable to these three categories of providers. For purposes of this item, we will use the general term “providers” to encompass the three categories of providers covered by our caller ID authentication rules, unless otherwise specified. Under the TRACED Act, the Commission must mandate that providers that continue to rely on non-IP technology “take reasonable measures to implement an effective call authentication framework in [their] non-[IP] networks.” We propose to conclude that a “call authentication framework” under section 227b(b)(1)(B) consists of any standards or other structures that define how to authenticate calls. This is supported by the TRACED Act's requirement that the Commission mandate implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN framework, which consists of the STIR and SHAKEN standards. To fulfill this “reasonable measures” requirement, the Commission requires that voice service providers either upgrade their entire network to IP or participate in efforts to develop a non-IP caller ID authentication solution, and said that it “will continue to evaluate whether an effective non-IP caller ID authentication framework emerges.” We propose to clarify that the Commission's rules requiring providers with non-IP networks to either upgrade their networks to IP or participate in efforts “to develop a non-IP solution,” refer to the development of a “call authentication framework” for non-IP networks under section 227b(b)(1)(B) of the TRACED Act. This is consistent with the Commission's description when it established these rules in the <E T="03">First Caller ID Authentication Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</E> (85 FR 22029, Apr. 21, 2020). There, the Commission made clear that it was implementing the “reasonable measures” requirement in section 227b(b)(1)(B) and it referred to the STIR/SHAKEN framework as a “SIP-based solution.” The TRACED Act requires the Commission to “grant a delay of required compliance” with the implementation deadline for non-IP caller ID authentication for voice service providers materially reliant on non-IP networks “until a call auth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 104k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━