FCC Chairman Warns of 'Regulatory Intervention' as He Criticizes Carriers' Anti-Robocall Plans (thehill.com)

The Federal Communications Commission will consider "regulatory intervention" if the major telecommunications carriers don't set up a system this year to stop spoofed robocalls, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday. "It's time for carriers to implement robust caller ID authentication," Pai said in a statement, noting that some companies have already committed to carrying out protocols, known as the SHAKEN/STIR framework, in 2019. A report adds: Pai sent letters to major wireless carriers in November demanding that they adopt industry-wide frameworks to crackdown on the practice of "spoofing," where robocallers mask a call's origin with a fraudulent number on their caller ID. On Wednesday, the FCC chair followed up with another demand that they implement caller authentication systems this year and a threat over the repercussions if they don't comply. You can read responses from carriers FCC's website.

Comments

Re:Uh-oh

[Sarten-X]

Personally, I'm opposed to the idea that anybody's purely evil. I think people are driven by motivations we just don't understand or don't agree with.

From that perspective, I'll wildly speculate with no evidence or context! That's what Slashdotters do best!

By threatening regulation instead of actually proposing regulation, Pai has actually opened the door for carriers to avoid compliance. They can present timelines pulled from dark and smelly orifices, promising that they'll be compliant sometime in 2083, and Pai can then turn around and issue statements that the FCC is now working "for the people" and "working with carriers to ensure timelines are met". Any further push by the public to accelerate the standards' implementation will just be called political posturing, led by the Deep State to undermine the FCC's authority.

Meanwhile, the big carriers will demand subsidies to implement this new standard, and in the name of system-wide compatibility, they will insist the government adopt (and mandate) another new standard, conveniently authored by several industry insiders, and which relies on a software patent with exorbitant licensing fees, just-so-unfortunately out of reach for a startup carrier's budget.

To be clear, this post is intended to be modded "Funny". Please do not let it be "Insightful". For the sake of all Americans, I hope to be completely wrong.