Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") revises its rules to: require prior express written consent for all autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless numbers and for prerecorded calls to residential lines and, accordingly, eliminate the established business relationship exemption for such calls to residential lines while maintaining flexibility in the form of consent needed for purely informational calls; require all prerecorded telemarketing calls to allow consumers to opt out of future prerecorded telemarketing calls using an interactive, automated opt-out mechanism; and limit permissible abandoned calls on a per-calling campaign basis, in order to discourage intrusive calling campaigns. The Commision also exempts from its telemarketing requirements prerecorded calls to residential lines made by health care-related entities governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Taken together, today's actions offer consumers greater protection from intrusive telemarketing calls and protect consumers from unwanted autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless numbers and from unwanted prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential lines, also known as "telemarketing robocalls," and maximize consistency with the analogous Telemarketing Sales Rule ("TSR") of the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC"), as contemplated by the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act ("DNCIA") in a way that reduces industry confusion about telemarketers' obligations and does not increase compliance burdens for most telemarketers.