Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Roboblock Act”.
Roboblock Act
A BILL
To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to direct the Federal Communications Commission to promulgate regulations that require providers of voice service to offer a robocall-blocking service at no additional charge to the customer, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Offering of robocall-blocking service at no charge to customer
Section 227 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 227) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(k) Offering of robocall-Blocking service at no charge to customer
“(1) Regulations—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this subsection, the Commission shall promulgate regulations that require a provider of voice service to offer a robocall-blocking service to each customer of the provider, at no additional charge to the customer.
“(2) Definitions—In this subsection:
“(A) Robocall
“(i) In general—The term “robocall” means a call made or text message sent—
“(I) using equipment, whether hardware, software, or a combination thereof and including an automatic telephone dialing system, that makes a call or sends a text message to—
“(aa) stored telephone numbers; or
“(bb) telephone numbers produced using a random or sequential number generator; or
“(II) using an artificial or prerecorded voice or an artificially generated message.
“(ii) Limitation—For purposes of clause (i)(I), the term “robocall” does not include a call made or text message sent using equipment that requires substantial human intervention to make or send the call or text message.
“(B) Robocall-blocking service—The term “robocall-blocking service” means a service that gives a customer of a provider of voice service the ability to block robocalls that are highly likely to be illegal.
“(C) Text message
“(i) In general—The term “text message” means a message consisting of text, images, sounds, or other information that is transmitted to or from a device that is identified as the receiving or transmitting device by means of a 10-digit telephone number, N11 service code, short code telephone number, or email address, or that is transmitted through application-to-person messaging, and includes—
“(I) a short message service (commonly referred to as “SMS”) message;
“(II) a multimedia message service (commonly referred to as “MMS”) message; and
“(III) a rich communication service (commonly referred to as “RCS”) message.
“(ii) Limitation—The term “text message” does not include a real-time, two-way voice or video communication.
“(D) Voice service—The term “voice service” has the meaning given such term in section 4(a) of the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act (47 U.S.C. 227b(a)).”