Telephone customers in rural areas across the country continue to report problems receiving long distance or wireless calls on their landline telephones.  The problems originate with long distance carriers who use low-cost routing services.  These can be very unreliable, and some even intentionally fail to complete calls into rural areas to avoid paying associated terminating long distance charges.

Whenever possible, please encourage the person trying to call you to report the details of the problem to their long distance or wireless telephone service provider.  The number to report these types of problems should appear on the caller’s monthly bill.  That provider should be able to locate the source of the problem and fix it, the FCC requires that they do so.  While you can report these to us, the person trying to make the call still needs to report it to their long distance or wireless provider.  We will work with that provider, but the calling party has to make the contact as it is an issue on their end.

Learn more about Rural Call Completion problems here.