Technology and AI
Fourteen voice providers are cut off from US networks and a robocall scorecard is proposed
By Staff Writer | 4 September 2026
The Federal Communications Commission removed fourteen companies from its Robocall Mitigation Database on 2 September after they ignored five notices and a show cause order, and every other provider must stop accepting their traffic within two business days. The same day it opened comment on a public scorecard rating how well retail carriers protect their customers.
The Enforcement Bureau's order, effective on release, removes the certifications of fourteen voice service providers from the database in which voice service providers, gateway providers and non-gateway intermediate providers must certify what they do to stop illegal robocalls. On 24 March 2026 the bureau had directed 35 companies to cure deficiencies in their certifications or explain why they should not be removed. These fourteen did neither. The order records that since the amended rules took effect on 26 February 2024 the companies had been put on notice no fewer than five times, through a bureau notification in March 2024, show cause orders in December 2024 and March 2026, an order in August 2025 and notification emails, and that none responded to the last of them.
The consequence is set out in the rules. Once a certification is removed, all intermediate providers and voice service providers must cease accepting calls directly from that company. The order gives them two business days from 2 September. Emergency calls to 911 may never be blocked. The fourteen may not refile without the consent of both the Enforcement Bureau and the Wireline Competition Bureau. They are named in the order's appendix as Apps Communications, CFX Business Solutions, Conference America, Convergence Technology Solutions, CSB Technologies, Digital Division, Dixie Net Communications, HIGHCOMM, Inatech Solutions, makrodepot, Opex Communications, Reachme.com, SECURE and Skycom Healthcare.
Today's action pushes more than a dozen providers off of U.S. networks for failing to abide by our robocall rules. The FCC continues to attack the problem of illegal robocalls at every point along the call path, and everyone in this ecosystem has an obligation to step up and do what they can to protect consumers against fraud and scammers.
Brendan Carr, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
What the database requires
The database was established in 2020 and opened for filings on 20 April 2021. Amendments adopted in March and May 2023 widened it to non-gateway intermediate providers, required every filer to submit a robocall mitigation plan, and added a commitment to answer traceback requests in full within 24 hours. Providers must also certify that they have implemented the STIR/SHAKEN caller identity authentication framework on all internet protocol portions of their networks. Failure to keep the certification complete is what removes a company, and removal is what cuts it off.
A scorecard, not a rule
In a public notice released the same day the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau seeks comment on a Robocall Scorecard. The bureau says in terms that this is not a rulemaking and will create no new obligations. The scorecard would be a public document on the Commission's website, updated periodically, that rates how effectively voice service providers address illegal robocalls on their networks, so that a consumer choosing a provider can compare them. It would not indicate whether a provider has complied with the rules, which the notice calls a case-specific legal inquiry.
The bureau proposes to rate only domestic retail providers, across wireless, wireline and VoIP, and not wholesale or intermediate carriers, aiming to cover those that together serve the great majority of the retail market. Comments are due on 22 September 2026 and replies on 2 October 2026 in CG Docket No. 26-239.
The notice separates conduct-based metrics from outcome-based ones. Conduct measures whether a provider has done specific things: offered customers tools to label or block calls, blocked or labelled calls on its own network, answered traceback requests and attested its calls under the authentication framework, with enforcement action against a provider counted on the other side of the ledger. Outcome measures whether robocalls reaching customers have actually fallen, using complaints to the Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, aggregated blocking figures reported alongside the false positive rate, and third-party trend data. Data sources under consideration include database filings, the Commission's complaint centre, its enforcement record, Industry Traceback Group data and Federal Trade Commission complaint data, with any personal information stripped out.
The bureau asks how to draw comparable data from filings that vary in form, whether independent scoring systems already built by others should be folded in, how to weight a hundred complaints against a small carrier against the same number against a large one, and how many metrics are enough without becoming unwieldy. The two actions fit together: the order removes providers who would not file what the rules require, and the scorecard would make the filings of the rest, and their results, visible to the customers they sell to.