Service Providers Must Begin Reporting Disconnected Numbers to the Reassigned Number Database on April 15, 2021

Businesses often mistakenly call telephone numbers that had once been assigned to their customer but unknown to the business has been reassigned to a new telephone subscriber. This can result in a call being made to persons that have not provided consent to be called and potentially violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. To combat this problem, the Federal Communications Commission ordered the creation of a reassigned number database that businesses can check to see if the number has been disconnected after a date certain and thus not inadvertently call the wrong person. The database is now ready to begin operating.

All providers, including VoIP providers, must report any permanently disconnected number to the database beginning on April 15, 2021. Providers must update the report every month, on the 15^th day of the month. In the initial submission due on April 15, 2021, the provider must populate the database with all permanently disconnected numbers from July 27, 2020.  (Small providers with fewer than 100,000 subscriber lines do not have to begin reporting until October 15, 2021 at which point they must “seed” the database with numbers disconnected since January 27, 2021.). The public notice announcing the initial reporting deadline can be found here https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-134A1.pdf. Technical information regarding the reporting format can be found here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-67A1.pdf. The FCC has selected SomosGov Inc. as the database administrator.

Please feel free to contact the CCA Office if you have any questions.