47 U.S.C. § 262 — Ensuring the integrity of voice communications

(a) Registration and compliance by intermediate providers. Any "intermediate provider" that offers to carry, or holds itself out as carrying, covered voice calls from one point to another, and charges any entity (even one it's affiliated with) for that transmission, must register with the FCC and follow service-quality standards the FCC will set. (b) Required use of registered intermediate providers. A "covered provider" (the company that actually serves the calling or called customer) can't use an intermediate provider to carry these calls unless that intermediate provider is registered. (c) Commission rules. Within 180 days of February 26, 2018, the FCC had to make rules setting up a public registry for these registrations. Within 1 year of that date, it had to make rules setting service-quality standards for how intermediate providers carry these calls. In writing these rules, the FCC must make sure call quality stays solid for every customer in the country, and must stop unfair or unreasonable discrimination between different areas of the country in how well their calls get through. (d) Public registry. The FCC must make the registry publicly available on its website. (e) Scope. These rules apply no matter what technology, format, or protocol is used to make the call, and no matter how the call or service is officially classified. (f) Rule of construction. Nothing in this section changes how any communication or service is otherwise classified. (g) Effect on other laws. This section doesn't take away or add to a state public utility commission's power to gather data, or to investigate and enforce state law, about calls that stay within one state — no matter the technology, format, or classification used. (h) Exception. A covered provider doesn't have to follow the quality standards in subsection (c)(1)(B) if, by one year after February 26, 2018, it had already certified as a "Safe Harbor" provider under a specific FCC rule (47 C.F.R. § 64.2107(a)) and it keeps meeting that rule's requirements. (i) Definitions. "Covered provider" means whatever that term is defined to mean in the FCC's rule 47 C.F.R. § 64.2101, or any rule that replaces it. A "covered voice communication" is a voice call (and its related signaling information) made from, or to, a phone number that uses the North American Numbering Plan, through a service run by a covered provider. An "intermediate provider" is a company that makes a business deal with a covered provider (or another intermediate provider) specifically to carry, route, or transmit voice calls placed from or to a North American Numbering Plan phone number — but only if that company doesn't itself act as the covered provider originating or ending that particular call.