Wis DOJ pushes FCC to implement stricter regulations to prevent illegal robocalls

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, alongside a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general, is actively pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to implement stricter regulations to prevent illegal robocalls. The coalition is urging the federal agency to bolster its “Know Your Upstream Provider” (KYUP) requirements, which require voice service providers to verify that the phone calls they receive come from legitimate and responsible sources. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul emphasized the necessity of these changes, noting that current network access controls are insufficient to protect Americans from widespread scams. Last year alone, consumers in the United States were targeted by more than twenty-nine billion scam calls and text messages, resulting in nearly two billion dollars in financial losses.

Under current routing practices, phone calls pass through multiple telecommunications companies before reaching their final destination. The coalition highlights that some service providers are failing to adequately vet the upstream providers that route these calls, allowing bad actors to exploit the phone network unchecked. To address this loophole, the attorneys general are proposing several immediate measures. First, they recommend mandating five specific baseline vetting procedures that would require providers to collect verified information from their upstream customers, regularly monitor compliance, and terminate service for non-compliant companies. Additionally, the coalition wants to establish automatic triggers for ongoing monitoring, rather than relying on providers to only check compliance during contract renewals or after a violation has already occurred.

The proposed reforms also include strengthening the existing STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework. The coalition wants the FCC to ensure that all voice service providers consistently verify that the incoming phone numbers have not been spoofed, regardless of where they are situated along the call path. Along with rapid implementation of these new rules, the attorneys general are calling for strict base penalties for non-compliance and the mandatory retention of verification data to support future law enforcement investigations.

These federal efforts align with ongoing regional crackdowns led by the Wisconsin DOJ and the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in 2025. During the initial phase of the operation, the task force sent warning letters to thirty-seven smaller voice providers for failing to mitigate suspicious traffic. Recently, the FCC ordered six of those non-compliant companies to address their robocall issues or face complete exclusion from the U.S. telephone network. In its second phase, the task force expanded its crackdown to four of the nation’s largest intermediate voice service providers, while continuing to push the FCC to strengthen its Know Your Customer rules to require phone companies to verify who is making calls using their networks and what business they are conducting.