N.J. attorney general urges FCC to strengthen rules aimed at combating illegal robocalls

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport is co-leading a coalition of 49 attorneys general calling on the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen rules aimed at preventing scammers from using U.S. communications networks to make illegal robocalls.

The coalition is asking the FCC to strengthen its “Know Your Upstream Provider” rules, which require voice service providers — companies that provide consumers with access to basic telephone service — to generally accept calls only from legitimate and responsible providers and prevent the regular transmission of large volumes of illegal calls.

The latest comments build on an earlier bipartisan effort, also co-led by Davenport, seeking stronger “Know Your Customer” rules. Both sets of rules are intended to require phone companies to know who they are accepting call traffic from and what kinds of businesses those callers are conducting.

That information can help phone companies suspend or terminate callers or upstream providers that use their networks for unlawful calls or decline to do business with companies that fail to meet minimum credibility standards.

“New Jerseyans are fed up with a constant barrage of unwanted robocalls,” said Attorney General Davenport. “These proposed rules give companies more incentive to do their due diligence before allowing junk calls to reach our phones. The FCC should finalize and implement these rules immediately to give states more tools to hold companies that shirk their duties accountable.”

According to the attorney general’s office, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts last year and lost nearly $2 billion to those scams.

Because calls can be routed through several phone companies before reaching a consumer, the coalition said each voice service provider along that path represents an opportunity to stop illegal traffic.

The attorneys general are asking the FCC to strengthen requirements for voice service providers to vet their upstream provider customers and require scrutiny similar to that used under the STIR/SHAKEN framework developed to prevent caller ID spoofing.

Recommendations from the coalition across its two sets of comments include:

• Requiring providers to better understand their customers’ businesses so upstream provider monitoring can more regularly help prevent bad actors from operating unchecked.
• Imposing additional requirements on custodians of the STIR/SHAKEN framework, including revoking a noncompliant company’s ability to participate in STIR/SHAKEN and establishing a strong conflict-of-interest policy.
• Holding all originating providers to Know Your Customer standards so scammers cannot use smaller voice service providers to facilitate illegal calls.
• Requiring originating providers to collect additional information about high-risk customers more likely to make illegal robocalls, including customers subscribing to high-volume services.

The latest action follows comments submitted by a coalition of 49 attorneys general to the FCC in July calling for stronger rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate phone numbers.

Davenport is also part of the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in 2025.

During the first phase of the operation, the task force sent warning letters to 37 smaller voice providers accused of failing to comply with certain FCC requirements intended to reduce the origination and transmission of illegal or suspicious robocalls. The FCC recently ordered six of those companies to address their robocall protection issues or risk losing the ability to route calls across the U.S. telephone network.

During the second phase, the task force expanded its efforts to four of the country’s largest intermediate voice service providers and pushed the FCC to strengthen its Know Your Customer rules.

Davenport was joined in the latest letter by attorneys general representing 48 other states, territories and jurisdictions.