If your business owns a toll-free phone number that is is text enabled to send and receive messages to and from your customers or prospects, you should know about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that have caused quite an uproar. In June of 2018, the FCC proposed a rule that would require subscribers to inform voice services agents also known as RespOrgs before they’re able to execute a business texting solution that would enable text messaging to and from a toll-free business phone line. The specified intent of the ruling was to prevent fraud, but truth be told, it doesn’t add any added fraud protection and needlessly challenges the ability for businesses to text enable their toll-free business phone numbers. Additionally, the new rule would force subscribers to pay an added fee to the RespOrgs, which would only increase the cost of business texting.

What the New FCC Rules Mean for Landline Texting

  Below we will cover some of the common questions regarding the new FCC regulations, and what it means for companies who have applied a business texting solution to their toll-free business phone numbers.

What is a Business Texting Solution?

  A business texting solution is when an organization has text enabled their business phone line to allow two-way text dialogs with their customers. For businesses, text enabling their business phone numbers has been a game changer. They no longer have to source different phone numbers for voice and text because their one business phone number can do it all.

How do the new FCC rules change the business texting development?

Prior to the new FCC rules, businesses with toll-free phone numbers who wanted to enable a two-way texting solution to communicate with their audience weren’t required to inform voice services agents (RespOrgs). With the new FCC rules, they do.

What was the main goal of the FCC ruling?

The FCC’s specified intent was to avoid fraud. Nevertheless, the truth is that the ruling did not add any added fraud protection. Text My Main Number already retrieves authorization from its subscribers to enable text messaging for their business phone numbers. In other words, the current protocol already effectively safeguards both your businesses and your customers. The new FCC regulations were influenced by Somos, who is a company that manages the toll-free voice registry for the telecommunications industry. Somos contended that there is a problem with sneaky text enablement of business phone numbers when in fact, there was nothing sneaky about it. Upon the passing of this rule, Somos stood to gain tens of millions of dollars in unchallenged revenue as a direct result. Interesting.

What do the FCC regulations mean for your business?

The new FCC regulations mean that it will take significantly longer to apply a business texting solution to your business telephone number. Companies will also face additional costs and be forced to report to the RespOrgs. Furthermore, if companies fail to inform the RespOrg when they’ve text-enabled their business phone numbers, the FCC may enforce penalties and other fines. Up to now, RespOrgs had no procedure in place for managing text-enablement requests. That means all requests would probably hit a dead end at first. As they navigate the new regulations, there’s a good chance they will execute the requirement to pay expensive fees to handle text enabling requests which in turn applies a major tax on the entire telecommunications industry. This new FCC ruling had immense consequences. For instance, the new classification made it impossible for California legislators to place a proposed tax on texting.

In the rest of this article we’ll cover:

• How the cataloging of texting as an Information Service in place of a Telecommunication Service affects businesses and their consumers
• How Text My Main Number conserves the integrity of business texting solutions as the most preferred B2C communication channel and shields consumers from spam texts

Is Text Messaging an Information Service or a Telecommunication Service according to the new FCC rules?

There has been a lot of uncertainty about the classification of text messaging, and whether or not it can be categorized as a telecom service, or if it was more of an information service, like e-mail is considered. The reason that’s imperative is that there’s are a lot of regulations that go into telecom services. Text messaging has ridden in this limbo for years, and it’s been treated more like email where it can be filtered and curated, and there’s always been an unspoken risk in the background of, “so, if it gets classified as a phone call, what exactly will that mean?” Thankfully, the new FCC regulations classified it as an information service. This is great news for companies who provide business texting solutions for businesses!  

How does Text My Main Number conserve the integrity of business texting services?

When a company wants to implement a business texting solution through the Text My Main Number landline texting services, we ensure that each new client is verified. Once the authentication process is complete, all new signups are required to review our terms & conditions which are also readily available on our website. All federal and state laws (and regulations) are itemized so that there is no room for guesswork. We also monitor that everyone is compliant with spam guidelines. To learn more about what the new FCC regulations mean for your business, feel free to contact us so that we can clarify any questions you may have about properly executing a business texting solution for your toll-free phone number.