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Relevate's Service Helps Telemarketers in Complying with New FCC Regulations

TMCnews Featured Article


July 17, 2013

Relevate's Service Helps Telemarketers in Complying with New FCC Regulations

By Jayashree Adkoli, TMCnet Contributor


Telemarketing calls are required to abide by the rules and regulations set forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Identifying and flagging wireless telephone numbers is an essential part of following FCC’s (News - Alert) regulations.


Springfield, Virginia-based data insight and management company, Relevate, has announced the availability of its Wireless Telephone Identification Service to telemarketers seeking to identify wireless telephone numbers to comply with the upcoming new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation.

In February 2012, FCC released several new requirements for telemarketers under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991(TCPA). One among them, which will go into effect from October 16, 2013, entails that companies must obtain prior express written consent from consumers before using an auto dialer to make telemarketing calls to their wireless numbers.

According to sources, the rule for the delivery of an autodialed or prerecorded non-marketing call or text message to a cell phone remains the same as before. The requirement is that only prior written express consent is required, provided that the call or message contains no up sell or other marketing content.

Relevate’s Wireless Telephone Identification Service includes a three-step process to identify wireless telephone numbers, so they may be flagged on customer data files.

In the first step, the Telecom Routing Administration file identifies blocks of wireless assigned telephone numbers. The data includes the assigned service provider, the type of service that is provided, the associated rate center and state/province/country, and a portability indicator.

However, the file comes with a disclaimer stating that complete accuracy is not guaranteed, as there are occasionally cell phones identified as landlines and vice versa.

In the second step, a ported telephone number file is used to identify phone numbers ported from landlines to cell, and cell to landlines. This data is received and updated weekly.

In third step, which Relevate’s Wireless Telephone Identification Service includes identifying cell phones by area code/exchange and block ID (7th digit of phone number). A match indicates that the number has been assigned to a wireless carrier.

According to Relevate, companies utilizing data for telemarketing should make sure that they process their data as described in the above three steps prior to any outbound auto dialing campaign to avoid FCC fines or other actions.

Relevate also recommends that companies consider the three steps for their inbound customer service calls as well to identify wireless callers at the time of the call.

However, the new obligation by FCC does not apply to informational or transactional calls or messages, such as flight updates, calls by or on behalf of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, calls for political purposes, surveys, or bank account fraud alerts.




Edited by Blaise McNamee







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