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 achieve a variety of goals. At the forefront of our mission in 2025, we are executing the FCC’s work to accelerate the transition of our nation’s aging legacy communications networks to next-generation networks capable of supporting the advanced communications services consumers have come to rely on, while also helping to remove barriers to broadband deployment.
We staff important Commission proceedings to protect consumers, including by ensuring that voice service providers mitigate illegally spoofed robocalls through implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework, which allows providers to verify that the caller ID information transmitted with a particular call matches the caller’s number. The Division addresses requirements for the administration of telephone numbering resources in the United States and assists the Commission with implementing rules for 988, the 3-digit dialing number for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which connects callers in crisis with mental health and counseling experts. We review requests for access to telephone numbers by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, and review and process applications from wireline carriers for mergers and other transfers of control, and for discontinuance of service. We also work to promote interconnection between communications providers across the nation, and manage proceedings addressing wireline providers’ responsibility to protect consumer privacy.
The Division develops rules for pole attachments in order to speed broadband deployment, ensures access to voice and broadband services for consumers living and working in multi-tenant environments, and implements the Safe Connections Act, which allows survivors of domestic violence to separate their mobile phone lines from shared accounts that include their abusers. 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 also manages the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program created by the Commission at the direction of Congress to reimburse providers of advanced communications services for expenses incurred in the removal, replacement, and disposal of insecure communications equipment and services in their networks.