The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) has issued a declaratory ruling that provides additional guidance regarding how providers that are subject to the FCC’s rural call completion rules must record, retain, and report call completion information. Specifically, the Bureau clarifies that covered providers must abide by the definitions of call attempt categories specified in the text of the Rural Call Completion Order, and may not count “unanswered” call attempts as “answered” calls under the Commission’s data retention and reporting rules. The Bureau determined a clarification was needed after a number of parties raised concern over the way Appendix C of the Rural Call Completion Order characterized certain call attempts.
