[VoiceOps] FCC RMD Naughty List

Nathan Anderson nathana at fsr.com
Fri Dec 13 01:52:36 EST 2024


I concur and was just about to respond with the same counter-argument.  I read
this paragraph, and I still do not come away with an understanding that one is
required to disclose other carriers that you peer with.

 

Now, if you happen to only peer with a single carrier who is providing you with
a turn-key, all-in-one solution (they do all of your origination, termination,
they host your S/S cert, they sign your term calls for you using your cert on
your behalf, maybe they are even your S/S CA that you obtained your cert from
in the first place, AND they do call analytics & run an STI-

 

From: Jeff Bilyk [mailto:jbilyk at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2024 15:53
To: Mary Lou Carey
Cc: Nathan Anderson; Voiceops
Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] FCC RMD Naughty List

 

To be clear, I am not for or against the policies, I am just stating my
understanding, namely: the requirement highlighted in the document you attached
only mandates disclosure of 3rd party vendors used for analytics. I do not
believe that sentence requires disclosure of upstreams used simply for voice
traffic,

 

Jeff

 

On Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 6:26 PM Mary Lou Carey <marylou at backuptelecom.com> wrote:

    How is it fair that if you use your upstream carrier for analytics that you
    have to list their name? The FCC has no business asking that. Especially
    when they don't force everyone who uses a separate analytic provider to
    list their upstream vendor's name? I have no problem with explaining the
    processes used, but asking for any vendor name is just not appropriate. 

    MARY LOU CAREY 
    BackUP Telecom Consulting 
    Office: 615-791-9969 
    Cell: 615-796-1111

     

    On 2024-12-12 05:15 PM, Jeff Bilyk wrote:

        Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the verbiage, but that appears to relate
        only to vendors of call analytics 3rd parties, and not all upstreams?

         

        On Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 6:03 PM Mary Lou Carey via VoiceOps <
        voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:

            See the attached document. I highlighted the verbiage that states
            you must provide the names of your 3rd party vendors. A lot of
            companies have their upstream providers sign their calls and do
            their analytics for them.

            MARY LOU CAREY 
            BackUP Telecom Consulting 
            Office: 615-791-9969 
            Cell: 615-796-1111

             

            On 2024-12-11 07:23 PM, Nathan Anderson via VoiceOps wrote:

                I agree with your stance on this, assuming this is in fact a
                requirement.  However...I must be dense, because I have now
                skimmed over the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth "Caller ID
                Authentication Report and Orders", the "Improving the
                Effectiveness of the Robocall Mitigation Database" docket, the
                updated RMD deadlines and compliance info in DA 24-73 posted in
                January, and I re-read paragraph II.3 of the so-called "naughty
                list" document that kick-started this thread.  And I can find
                zero mention anywhere that supplying a detailed and accurate
                itemized list of your upstreams is any sort of requirement in
                one's RMD filing.  There seems to be plenty of talk about
                having "know your upstreams" procedures, but that is not
                defined as disclosing your upstreams.

                 

                So what am I missing?  I'm sure I am just ignorant about where
                I should be looking ("I'm a [S:doctor:S]engineer, not a lawyer,
                dammit!"), but this is a rather well-hidden requirement...

                 

                -- Nathan

                 

                From: Mary Lou Carey [mailto:marylou at backuptelecom.com]
                Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2024 09:09
                To: Nathan Anderson
                Cc: Voiceops
                Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] FCC RMD Naughty List

                 

                The requirement to disclose who your underlying carriers and
                additional contact information were just added THIS YEAR. If
                you're up to date on everything else, you might not have made
                the list because there were so many less complaint than you, I
                wouldn't take that as a sign that the FCC won't ever contact
                you about missing information.

                I'm a consultant so I'm exposed to a lot more problems than one
                company may run into. I personally spoke with the FCC and FBI
                about the scamming situation because someone approached us for
                help when they realized someone had contacted one of their
                upstream carriers and was impersonating them. The FCC and FBI
                had no answers......I'm the one that made the connection
                between the information scammers got and where they could have
                gotten it from.

                 

                I was helping carriers with STIR/SHAKEN compliance long before
                the RMD was required. The FCC came up with it as a work around
                because not every carrier could qualify for a STIR/SHAKEN
                certificate under the original requirements. (The original
                requirement the RMD replaced was having access to numbering
                resources. As in NXXs - not DIDs). 

                In my opinion what started out as a method to identify all the
                players in the industry has turned into an information grab
                that should not be happening. Not only because it would be a
                nightmare to keep the upstream carrier list updated, but
                because it creates way too much temptation for fraudsters and
                the anti-competitive to abuse it.  

                MARY LOU CAREY 
                BackUP Telecom Consulting 
                Office: 615-791-9969 
                Cell: 615-796-1111

                 

                On 2024-12-10 08:09 PM, Nathan Anderson via VoiceOps wrote:

                    Wait, say what now?  I'm not even sure I understand how
                    that kind of hijacking is possible.  You'd have to be able
                    to deduce who that provider's underlying carriers are
                    before you could attempt to engage in that kind of social
                    engineering with them, and as an IPES, there's nowhere
                    either in our 499 filings or in the RMD filing where we are
                    required to disclose that, either publicly or privately/
                    redacted.  (Unless I'm missing something?  We have never
                    disclosed that in any FCC filings, and yet we didn't get
                    added to this "naughty" list.  Furthermore, a read through
                    of the required information listed in this notice under
                    II.3 absolutely does not say anywhere that you are required
                    to itemize who your specific upstreams are.)  I suppose you
                    could voluntarily disclose it in your RMD plan write-up,
                    but...why would you, as that just unnecessarily ties your
                    hands and results in a bunch of self-inflicted busy work
                    (if you're going to list it, then you either have to
                    maintain that list, avoid bringing up new or tearing down
                    old SIP trunks with various underlying carriers, or risk
                    having the disclosure become "stale").

                     

                    Also, on a different but related note, this whole
                    incomplete-RMD-filing issue is a problem that the FCC kinda
                    /sorta created themselves, and then decided shirk their
                    responsibility for doing so and saddle all of us with the
                    downstream consequences and threats.  Just to remind
                    everybody of the history here, this database as originally
                    conceived by the brilliant minds in Washington required
                    that filers EITHER certified themselves as being wholly S/S
                    compliant, OR if not, then they had to supply a written
                    mitigation plan.  If you selected the "I am 100% S/S
                    compliant" checkbox, it would NOT allow you to upload a
                    document attachment with any kind of written plan.  And if
                    you first filed as only partially compliant or
                    not-yet-compliant, and added such a document/attachment to
                    your filing, and then after finishing your S/S
                    implementation you went back and UPDATED your filing to
                    reflect your new compliance, the system would DELETE your
                    previous attachment from your filing, and not give you any
                    option to submit a new one.  If you filed as 100%
                    compliant, you could not add an attachment, PERIOD.  100%
                    compliance and document attachments were mutually exclusive
                    .

                     

                    Then one day they decided that maybe that was a bad idea,
                    and required everybody who was 100% complaint to drop
                    everything & go back and add written mitigation plans to
                    their filings.

                     

                    So far in the (admittedly few) minutes I've taken to check
                    out a handful of companies on this "naughty" list,
                    virtually all of them are in the boat of having checked the
                    "100% compliant" checkbox, but not having gone back after
                    the rule change to submit a written RM plan document
                    attachment to their filing.

                     

                    -- Nathan

                     

                    From: VoiceOps [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On
                    Behalf Of Mary Lou Carey via VoiceOps
                    Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 14:08
                    To: voiceops at voiceops.org
                    Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] FCC RMD Naughty List

                     

                    The requirements for RMD changed and you now need to add a
                    lot more information. You only have 14 days to respond to
                    the FCC, but MAKE SURE YOU FILE YOUR 499 CONFIDENTIALLY! We
                    have already learned of incidents where scammers got ahold
                    of company information and attempted to get the company's
                    underlying carriers to change the IP addresses for their
                    SIP trunks so they could hijack their network. We've
                    brought this to the attention of the FBI and FCC, but the
                    FCC's only offer was to file them confidentially. I
                    personally think they're asking for way too much
                    information and stupid to allow anyone's information to be
                    listed on a public site, but until they fix the problem its
                    up to carriers themselves to make sure their information is
                    secure.

                    Ashley (with Equitel Compliance) and I (BackUP Telecom can
                    help anyone that needs to update their RMDs or get STIR/
                    SHAKEN certified. 

                    MARY LOU CAREY 
                    BackUP Telecom Consulting 
                    Office: 615-791-9969 
                    Cell: 615-796-1111

                     

                    On 2024-12-10 03:42 PM, Dave Russo via VoiceOps wrote:

                        Here is the FCC order & list mentioned: https://
                        docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-1235A1.pdf

                         

                        Also somewhat related, I'm curious how some companies
                        that claim to be STIR/SHAKEN compliant and are listed
                        on iconectiv's authorized provider list get away with
                        not being fully FCC compliant?

                         

                        For example when we were looking for a new provider it
                        came to my attention that Atheral is 5 years behind on
                        its FCC 499 filings... Looks like it last filed in
                        2019: https://apps.fcc.gov/cgb/form499/499detail.cfm?
                        FilerNum=832820

                         

                        Does this mean it can get shut down any time the FCC
                        decides to do that? Will resellers that use them be at
                        risk of losing service or subject to some FCC action
                        themselves?

                         

                        -dr

                         

                         

                        On Tue, Dec 10, 2024, at 2:17 PM, Mike Hammett via
                        VoiceOps wrote:

                            How many of you are on the Robocall Mitigation
                            Database naughty list that the FCC just sent out?

                             

                            It'd be nice if they told you *WHY* your filing was
                            deficient. Instead, they just generically list
                            broad categories that you may or may not fit into.

                             

                             

                             

                            -----

                            Mike Hammett

                            Intelligent Computing Solutions

                            http://www.ics-il.com

                             

                             

                             

                            Midwest Internet Exchange

                            http://www.midwest-ix.com

                             

                             

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