The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at its monthly meeting Thursday voted to press forward with plans to limit offshore call centers run by U.S. communications providers. The FCC is seeking comment on a policy that would encourage providers to bring call center jobs back to the United States. It would require companies to disclose customer service agents' locations during calls, cap the share of calls handled by overseas agents, set English language proficiency requirements for overseas agents, and enable consumers to request U.S.-based agents. It would also require that calls involving certain types of very sensitive information be handled by U.S. call centers.
"Too often, foreign call centers have meant confusing customer service, delayed support and even security risks," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said during the meeting. "American consumers deserve call centers that speak proficient English, provide clear answers, and are based here at home not halfway around the world."
The FCC voted unanimously to open these proposals to public comments, paving the way for adoption later this year.
And while consumers might embrace the changes, members of the contact center industry had a few choice comments of their own. Sharath?Narayana,?CEO and co-founder?of?Sanas, a speech artificial intelligence technology provider, argues that the proposal risks worsening service quality, increasing automation, and misses the core issue of communication barriers and clarity.
"Today's vote to advance a plan forcing outsourced call center jobs back to the U.S. moves the country in the wrong direction for anyone who's tried to get help when it mattered most and hit a wall. Service quality does not improve simply because the person answering the phone is sitting in the U.S. What resolves an issue is clear communication in the moments that matter. That is the foundation of trust, and it is what people expect every time from companies they rely on for real-time support," he says.?
"These rules add real financial pressure on U.S. businesses and will push many companies further toward automation just to absorb the cost. That shift changes the balance between human support and AI long before consumers see any improvement. If the goal is faster resolutions, fewer mistakes, and conversations that work, the focus should be on removing the communication gaps that create confusion in the first place. Clear, confident understanding is what powers great service. Geographic mandates will not deliver that," Narayana added.
Rick Ruth, senior director of carrier relations and regulatory at CTM, shares much of that sentiment.
"Customer experience tends to vary more by interaction type than by geography. Domestic handling is often associated with better performance in complex or high-trust conversations, while offshore operations continue to serve standardized, high-volume use cases effectively," he says. "Most organizations already use segmented or hybrid models that match call handling to the nature of the interaction, and how those models evolve will largely depend on how regulatory requirements take shape.
"A shift to U.S.-based agents would likely require more granular call segmentation and routing, particularly for interactions involving regulatory or sensitive content. Organizations may align specific call types with domestic handling requirements, which will have downstream effects on staffing models and cost structures. How smoothly this happens will depend less on building separate systems than on how new requirements are defined and how they layer into existing routing, authentication, and consent frameworks."
The FCC also advanced a separate proposal that would expand robocall certification and reporting requirements, voting to launch a rulemaking proceeding that would stop illegal robocallers at the source by tightening rules around how U.S. phone numbers are obtained and used.
The FCC policy would extend robocall certification requirements to all providers that receive numbering resources, including resellers, and require greater transparency into how numbers are resold and used.