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The Commission has proposed establishing a uniform set of requirements for offshore call centers that include limiting the percentage of customer service calls that can be handled at call center locations outside of the U.S. as well as disclosure requirements and the right to transfer to a domestic agent. The cable association argues that this is something the market can take care of itself.

“There is no reason to single out the communications sector for regulation of offshore call centers because competition already promotes sound customer service practices, including through such call centers,” said NCTA, whose members include Comcast, Charter, Cox and Mediacom. “NCTA members understand that a company that does not provide the support a customer expects risks losing that customer to a competitor.”

Charter has been held up by FCC Chair Brendan Carras the poster child for moving all its call centers stateside, on-shoring the combined companies’ customers sales and service functions after the acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright Housein 2016. It’s pledged to do the same for Cox Communications’ call centers when that deal closes. In comments filed last week, Charter reiterated the benefits it has seen from on-shoring, such as a decline in trouble calls, and asked that if the FCC adopts any rules, it exempt providers that invest in a 100% domestic, employee-based customer service operation. “Such reporting would not be necessary when the goal of any such rules would have already been achieved,” Charter said.

ACA Connects noted that its members are community-based providers in competition with national players that distinguish themselves by providing exceptional, hands-on customer service. Still, it doesn’t want the FCC to adopt the proposed rules, arguing they would disproportionately burden small and mid-sized providers and would almost certainly exceed the limits of the agency’s legal authority. What’s more, ACAC argues that the rules could be used by future Commissions to justify sweeping regulations based on broad statutory interpretations to further their own policy goals. “For instance, a future Commission might deem it ‘unjust’ or ‘unreasonable’ to use fossil fuels to power telecommunications facilities,” ACAC said in comments.

EchoStar—touting that its DISH Network was named #1 in Customer Satisfaction among cable/satellite TV service providers nationally for six consecutive years by J.D. Power—said that the FCC’s notion that customer service has suffered as a result of the movement of call centers offshore does not reflect reality. “EchoStar’s own call center improvements (and resulting recognition from third parties) are proof that the market is working: its offshore call center representatives are well educated, well trained, experienced, and effective,” the company said, noting its foreign call centers consistently score similarly to their domestic counterparts on customer satisfaction and quality assessment measures.

Afni, headquartered in Illinois, operates two call centers in the U.S. as well as four call centers in Mexico and the Philippines that serve U.S. enterprises in communications, insurance and financial services. The firm argued such rules would result in higher costs that will be passed onto customers. Afni said its call center staff are well educated, highly trained and fully proficient in English. It also uses Krisp, an accent neutralization application to improve clarity, comprehension and overall service quality for U.S. consumers during customer service interactions. “Although we receive relatively few complaints regarding difficulty in understanding due to accents, generally less than 4% of calls, the use of Krisp has cut that percentage roughly in half,” Afni said.

Even the Communications Workers of America, which has worked for years to onshore call centers, has concerns with the proposal. The union argued that the FCC notice focuses too much on English language proficiency in offshore call centers when it could help expose the problems of the global outsourcing industry by requesting and publishing information on the wages and performance metrics that workers labor under.

CWA also challenged the Notice of Proposed for Rulemaking for asking whether providers would be able to save some costs by deploying AI to handle calls. “It would be a sad irony if a rule nominally designed to reshore call center jobs and improve customer service instead simply pushed more customers to artificial intelligence agents that are broadly unpopular and whose ability to actually solve the customer’s challenges are highly limited,” CWA said.

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