Federal Communications Commission FCC 13-18 
STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN
Re: Rural Call Completion, WC Docket No. 13-39
Whether a telephone call is being made from across the street or across the nation, consumers 
expect them to be completed.  So when calls are not timely received, not only is it frustrating, it is 
detrimental to those seeking to conduct business, as well as for those who need to convey time-sensitive 
personal information.  Call completion isn’t simply about inconvenience for we are hearing about lost 
business and economic opportunities, of families unable to connect during times of crises, and of very real 
public safety vulnerabilities.  Moreover, consumer confusion abounds when the calling party believes the 
called party’s phone is ringing, as indicated by the fact that the calling party hears the ring numerous 
times, but the call is never retrieved by a person, voicemail, or answering machine.  In fact, this premature 
ringing is contrary to the industry practice that the audible ringing only occurs when the called party’s 
line is available, and the called party’s phone is also ringing. 
Since these issues arose, I have been encouraging the Chairman and our staff to take the 
necessary steps to resolve the rural call completion problems as expeditiously as possible.  Indeed, both 
the Commission and the Wireline Competition Bureau have already taken several important steps to 
clarify the legal obligations of carriers to complete calls.  In our USF/ICC Transformation Order released 
in November 2011, we confirmed that carriers cannot block, choke, or reduce or restrict traffic in any 
way, and the Bureau followed up with a second Order shortly thereafter, that clarifies that originating 
carriers can be held liable for knowing that there are completion issues and not correcting them.  
Moreover, our staff has been collecting real-time information from carriers and consumers to spot 
patterns and resolve connection issues, and they have been investigating particular carriers and their 
practices.  In my discussions with carriers and consumers, I have been encouraging all those experiencing 
call completion problems to use the real-time information tools the FCC has made available to help us 
determine the cause and parties involved in order to resolve individual issues and investigations more 
quickly.  
As evidenced by the unanimous issuance of this NPRM and our prior actions, this Commission takes 
seriously our responsibility to ensure that wired communications is available to all consumers in the U.S.  
Our Wireline Competition Bureau and Enforcement Bureau are carrying out our rules and policies, and I 
am pleased that we are adopting an NPRM that will help us better enforce our call completion 
requirements.  Today’s action will help ensure that the Commission has access to the information it needs 
when investigating complaints about carriers not completing calls in rural areas, and it will incentivize 
originating carriers to improve call completion performance.  Moreover, I am pleased that the NPRM 
proposes to address consumer confusion, by prohibiting the premature signaling of the audible ringing to 
the calling party.  As soon as the record is complete, we should issue an Order giving us all the tools 
necessary to enforce our call completion requirements.