For Immediate Release
Contact: Laura Withers, 703-351-2087, [email protected]
Arlington, Va. (March 15, 2019)—NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association issued the following statement from Chief Executive Officer Shirley Bloomfield in response to the FCC order to implement the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act of 2017. The order extends requirements to monitor call completion to intermediate call routers and eliminates record-keeping requirements that currently apply to the routing of calls to rural communities.
“Through its work on issues ranging from universal service to spectrum policy, the FCC has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment in recent years to overcoming the digital divide and improving the quality of voice and broadband services in rural America,ˮ said Bloomfield. “We are concerned, however, that aspects of today’s action could open the door for backsliding with respect to rural call completion, leaving rural Americans waiting once again for calls that are placed but never arrive. Specifically, with today’s elimination of the last traces of record-keeping and reporting on call completion, it will be all the more important now for the FCC to pair the new call router registry and higher-level monitoring measures with more aggressive enforcement to ensure that we don’t take steps backward as a nation in ensuring calls reach their intended destination.ˮ
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