On December 13, 2019, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (“Bureau”) issued the Notice to refresh the record on possible ways to modernize and strengthen the Federal Communications Commission’s (“Commission” or “FCC”) truth-in-billing rules. Specifically, the Bureau sought comments on a proposal to extend the truth-in-billing rules to providers of interconnected VoIP (“I-VoIP”) services and to require carriers to separate government-mandated charges from other charges on consumers’ telephone bills.
In Reply Comments submitted on March 12th, the Cloud Communications Alliance (“CCA”) expressed its support of Comments filed by the VON Coalition, INCOMPAS, ACA Connects and US Telecom, to the extent they opposed imposing either truth-in-billing rules or a requirement to create an artificial breakdown of VoIP taxes and fees on I-VoIP providers. The CCA asserted that, In the absence of probative evidence that customers of I-VoIP services are experiencing billing problems or confusion about fees & taxes, the FCC should continue its historically light-touch regulation of I-VoIP services. You can find the detailed filing here.