Regulation of interstate and international communication for public interest involves a large set of telecommunication policies. The number of laws and rules has grown substantially in telecommunication and networking, even while other areas of regulation were being cut back. For example, many environmental protections were cut back during the Trump administration, while telecommunications regulations were increased.
While the US law prefers a “hands-off” approach toward other technological elements, voice telecom is undoubtedly not one of them. Telecommunication and voice networking firms need to monitor and comply with a diverse range of legal regulations.
Severity of Non-Compliance
New privacy rules continue to unfold and become more and more localized. For example, if the call includes a participant from California or the European Union, that requires you to follow the laws of those jurisdictions. Under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, callers in California have successfully sued companies and technology providers in other states and won. In most cases, non-compliance poses greater risks for voice engineers as they are personally responsible for following the laws. For instance, someone who configures call routing in a way that limits calls to rural destinations in the USA could incur fines of $19,639 per violation.
There are several other crucial factors that voice engineers and service providers must consider to stay compliant. Some of these include:
- Any device capable of placing outbound calls to a telephone number must be able to call 911 for emergencies. This includes video meetings and other technologies able to outdial a telephone call.
- To avoid robocalling, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act effectively prohibits making a system that automatically dials a series of telephone calls without careful opt-in procedures.
- Those who handle telephone calls must support the "Lawful Intercept" of phone calls when a court order or subpoena is issued.
- VoIP service providers must offer some kind of option for sale to their customers that provides 24 hours of backup power.
- Many engineers are not acquainted with the 1990s FCC "Customer Proprietary Network Information" rules, which are exceptionally strict about privacy.
- When providing services to healthcare providers covered by HIPAA, the VoIP network design must be configured to protect patient privacy.
Compliance is an essential part of maintaining voice networks. While it is likely that your voice engineers may not be fully aware of all the regulatory regimes, technical expertise and engineering partners can help monitor and examine these regulations – allowing you to focus on your core business.
ECG: Shielding and Strengthening Voice Networks
ECG is trusted by service providers, government agencies, and large global enterprises for rigorous voice network support and critical networking infrastructure development.
Inspection and Refinement
ECG conducts cyber security audits periodically and implements solutions accordingly to ensure the best security practices.
Analytics Planning
ECG helps service providers steer in the right direction by designing a plan to ensure the effective management of backups and logs.
Perpetual Learning
Regular training classes on the laws and regulations by ECG are intended for engineers to understand the best practices and engineer safe solutions.
Legislative Outlook
ECG works closely with lawyers at the law firm of Marashlian and Donahue, the CommLaw group, and keeps pace with the latest legislations in voice networking.
With 25 years of experience in communications networking, ECG designs, builds, and supports the best voice network systems. ECG draws experience from dozens of VoIP service providers in the U.S. and worldwide. With the right compliance management partner, you can go about an unobstructed path.
Learn more about our resources, partnerships, and capabilities. Or contact us to know more about our network operation services.
ECG is not a law firm and the materials, publications, and presentations (collectively, “Information”) it produces does not constitute legal advice, nor should it be relied upon as such. No attorney-client or confidential relationship exists or will be formed between you and ECG or any of our representatives. Although ECG goes to great lengths to make sure the Information it produces is accurate and useful, we recommend consulting with an experienced Telecommunications Lawyer if you want legal advice or to confirm the accuracy and applicability of the Information to your Company.