Cybersecurity Policy Report, Input Sought on Verizon Plea for Limited DNO-Call-Blocking Waiver, (Feb 3, 2023)
Organizations Mentioned:Verizon Communications
By Lynn Stanton
The FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau is seeking comment on a petition filed by Verizon Communications, Inc., in December seeking a limited waiver of the Commission's mandate to block calls coming from DNO (do-not-originate) phone numbers, such as numbers used by government agencies and other entities only for incoming traffic.
"[T]here is one narrow type of traffic that Verizon is unable to block: toll-free calls from foreign consumers that terminate at call centers belonging to U.S. enterprises. Verizon thus seeks a narrowly targeted waiver from blocking calls from this type of traffic, which will have no appreciable effect on consumers. That's because one would not expect DNO traffic to traverse these gateways in light of who places and receives international toll-free calls, and that expectation is borne out by an internal Verizon study showing that no DNO traffic traverses these gateways to begin with," Verizon said in its petition.
"For this toll-free traffic, strict compliance with the DNO Blocking requirement would work an undue hardship for Verizon with no corresponding public benefit. A limited waiver of the DNO Blocking requirement is thus in the public interest," it added.
Comments are due March 6 in the CG 17-59 proceeding. Reply comments are due March 20.
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