FCC proposes robocall scorecard to grade phone carriers on spam blocking
The Federal Communications Commission said it will create a robocall mitigation scorecard to rate phone companies on how effectively they block illegal spam calls. The proposal comes from the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, which laid it out in a public notice, and was also announced by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a press release.
The scorecards could combine call-blocking statistics with data on customer complaints and enforcement actions. The FCC said it is still deciding on the format: providers could be scored on a number scale, given letter grades, or classified into low risk, medium risk, or high risk tiers.
The proposed tool would rate wireless, wireline, and VoIP providers not just on the steps they take but on their actual results in protecting consumers from illegal robocalls. The FCC's public notice frames this as moving beyond a simple administrative checklist, meaning whether a provider filed the right paperwork or offered the right tools, toward a composite set of metrics covering both operational practices and measurable outcomes, including how often legitimate calls get blocked by mistake.
The scorecard as proposed would apply to domestic voice service providers that have retail customers, but not to telcos that operate solely as wholesale or intermediate providers. The source does not specify a launch date, a comment-period deadline, the next procedural step, whether FCC commissioners have voted on the proposal, or how the risk thresholds and any numeric scale would actually be set. No specific carrier is named as a target or example, and this is a proposal, not something the FCC has adopted or finalized.
Key facts
- The FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau proposed a robocall mitigation scorecard in a public notice to rate phone companies on illegal spam call blocking.
- Scorecards could include call-blocking statistics, customer complaint data, and enforcement actions, formatted as a number scale, letter grades, or risk tiers (low, medium, high).
- The scorecard would judge wireless, wireline, and VoIP providers on actual outcomes, including how often legitimate calls are wrongly blocked, not just administrative compliance.
- It would apply to domestic voice providers with retail customers, excluding wholesale-only or intermediate telcos.
- FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called combatting robocalls the agency's top consumer protection priority and said the scorecard is meant to inform consumers and push providers to improve.
Why it matters
Robocall blocking today is largely a black box for consumers: carriers say they comply with FCC rules, but there is no simple public way to compare how well one provider actually stops illegal spam calls versus another. A scorecard would turn that compliance activity into a visible, comparable outcome, shifting the FCC's oversight focus from checking whether providers filed the right paperwork to measuring whether robocalls are actually being blocked.
Who it affects
Domestic wireless, wireline, and VoIP providers with retail customers would be rated and would need to improve or defend their standing publicly. Wholesale and intermediate telcos that do not serve retail customers are excluded from the proposal. Consumers are the intended audience for the scorecard, meant to help them judge which providers are actually protecting them from spam calls.
How to use it
The scorecard does not exist yet; the FCC has issued a public notice proposing it, not a finalized rule. No launch date, comment deadline, or next procedural step is stated in the source, and it is not yet known where a published scorecard would be hosted or how easy it would be for a consumer to find and read.
How solid is it
This is a formal FCC public notice, backed by an on-record statement from Chairman Brendan Carr, so the proposal itself is solid. What remains undecided, by the FCC's own account, is the scorecard's format (numeric, letter grade, or risk tier) and the metrics that would set those grades; the source does not say whether commissioners have voted on any of it.
Risks and caveats
A scorecard is only as useful as its design and data sources: whether it actually helps consumers depends on how it is built, how easy it is to find, and what data it draws on. The proposal also explicitly weighs the risk of overblocking, tracking how often legitimate calls get blocked alongside how many illegal ones are stopped. No specific provider, timeline, or enforcement mechanism is named yet, so the scorecard's real-world effect cannot be assessed from this notice alone.
“Combatting the scourge of illegal robocalls remains the FCC's top consumer protection priority... As proposed in today's public notice, the FCC aims to develop a scorecard that will give consumers more information about the measures providers are taking to fight illegal robocalls, and it will also incentivize providers to improve their efforts”
— Brendan Carr, FCC Chairman