Media Contact: 
Tina Pelkey, (202) 418-0536
tina.pelkey@fcc.gov
For Immediate Release
CHAIRMAN PAI STATEMENT ON NEW LAW TO IMPROVE RURAL 
CALL QUALITY AND RELIABILITY 
Improves Standards, Increases Accountability for Call Completion in Rural America
  -- 
WASHINGTON, February 27, 2018—Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit 
Pai issued the following statement after President Trump signed into law the Improving Rural 
Call Quality and Reliability Act of 2017:
“For far too long, many rural Americans have faced a communications problem that you’d 
think would be a relic from a century ago:  They can’t reliably receive long-distance phone 
calls.  Some calls drop; others are never connected at all.  This is unacceptable, and it’s a 
problem we at the FCC intend to fix.
“The Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act gives the FCC another tool to tackle 
this problem head-on.  The new law empowers the agency to oversee a significant source of 
rural call completion failures: so-called ‘intermediate’ carriers who carry calls between 
originating carriers (on the caller’s side) and terminating carriers (on the recipient’s side).  The 
FCC now can also establish service quality standards for call completion by intermediate 
carriers, and the tools to hold them accountable.
“I will be working closely with my fellow commissioners to ensure that rural Americans have 
what every American expects: a telephone system that works.”
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Office of Chairman Ajit Pai: (202) 418-2000
Twitter: @AjitPaiFCC
www.fcc.gov/leadership/ajit-pai
This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action.  Release of the full text of a Commission order 
constitutes official action.  See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).