Concord, NH – Attorney General John Formella today praised the Federal Communications Commission for adopting new rules to prevent illegal robocalls that originated overseas from coming into the U.S. phone network. Attorney General Formella, along with a bipartisan coalition of 51 attorneys general, urged the FCC to put these guardrails for gateway providers in place back in January.

"I applaud my fellow attorneys general of both parties for joining me in encouraging the FCC to take these measures to help keep robocalls from negatively impacting people's lives," said Attorney General Formella. "I'm glad to see the FCC taking action to prevent scammers overseas from accessing our phone networks and bombarding Americans with these nonstop, harmful calls."

The FCC has adopted new rules on gateway providers – the on-ramps for international call traffic – institute stringent compliance requirements to ensure that these providers comply with STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication protocols and require that they take additional measures to validate the identity of the providers whose traffic they are routing. International robocall scams are widely understood to be a huge part of the robocall and spoofing problem facing American consumers and businesses.

The new rules require gateway providers to participate in robocall mitigation, including blocking efforts. With this Report and Order, non-compliance by a gateway provider may result in that provider being removed from the Robocall Mitigation Database and subject to mandatory blocking by other network participants, essentially ending its ability to operate.

The FCC has already moved up to June 30, 2022 the sunset of the exception afforded to certain small carriers for implementing STIR/SHAKEN. In addition, the FCC's Enforcement Bureau has demanded that providers cease and desist from carrying illegal robocall traffic.

For tips about stopping illegal robocalls and robotexts, visit: fcc.gov/robocalls.