Continuing its recent trend of cracking down on robocalls, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued another three cease and desist letters to voice service providers.
AireSpring, Hello Hello Miami and thinQ Technologies each received a letter from the agency on March 22 explaining that investigations found the providers were “apparently facilitating illegal robocall traffic on their networks.”
The investigations relied on information collected by the Traceback Consortium and—for thinQ—the North Carolina Department of Justice.
Each company was given 48 hours to stop facilitating the allegedly illegal activity or face all of their traffic being blocked by other providers.
The most recent letters bring the FCC’s total to more than a dozen since March 2021 and provide a reminder, as explained by Chair Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement about the most recent letters, that “[i]t is illegal to allow these junk calls to flood consumers’ phones, and there are consequences for phone companies that do not take immediate action to stop participating in these schemes.”
To read the FCC’s press release and cease and desist letters, click here.
Why it matters: To date, all recipients of cease and desist letters have “quickly” responded and committed to taking actions to stop robocalls on their networks, the FCC said, adding that the agency “and its partners remain vigilant in monitoring these—and all—providers’ efforts to ensure unyielding compliance with consumer protection requirements going forward.” The FCC announced a few days after the letters were sent the addition of new partners in the fight against robocalls: Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey and Wyoming have joined the list of jurisdictions working with the agency pursuant to memoranda of understanding (MOU). The FCC also announced strengthening of existing MOUs with Michigan and West Virginia.
These actions show that state and federal regulators are increasing scrutiny even on infrastructure providers that may not themselves make any potentially violative calls. Entities that generally may feel exempt from TCPA compliance concerns because they are not in the direct marketing business should take heed.