Welcome to the homepage for the Competition Policy Division of the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau. Our primary mission is to foster competition in the provision of communications services to ensure a vibrant marketplace. We fulfill this mission through market-opening rulemakings and other proceedings that affect the open Internet (net neutrality), prevent digital discrimination, promote interconnection between communications providers across the nation, and protect consumer privacy. We lead the Bureau’s work for other critical FCC initiatives, including protecting consumers from illegal robocalls, implementing the Safe Connections Act, which allows survivors of domestic violence to separate their mobile phone lines from shared accounts that include their abusers, advancing the security of the nation’s communications network equipment through overseeing the Supply Chain Reimbursement Program, developing policies and rules for pole attachments in order to speed broadband deployment, and ensuring access to voice and broadband services for consumers living and working in multi-tenant environments. We also play a principal role in the FCC’s annual assessment of whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion across the United States.
The Division administers U.S. numbering policy, which includes development of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, oversight of local number portability and the North American Numbering Council, and reviewing requests for access to telephone numbers by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers. Additionally, in order to protect the public interest, we review applications from wireline carriers for mergers and other transfers of control, and for discontinuance of service.