The Federal Communications Commission has announced the pricing structure for its Reassigned Number Database, which will attempt to inform callers, including those in the accounts receivable management industry, whether a consumer’s cell phone number has been disconnected or reassigned.
Prices will range between $10 and $35,100 per month, depending on the number of inquiries that are made by the subscriber. The FCC is offering six tiers of subscription options — Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Jumbo.
While it is offering subscription terms of one, three, or six months, the FCC is not offering any discounts for signing on for longer terms, according the the pricing matrix it published. The cost-per-query ranges from $0.01 for the extra small tier to $0.00117 for the jumbo tier.
The pricing is listed as “interim” pricing and is based off data collected while the database was being beta tested. “This interim approach will enable us to avoid delays in addressing unwanted calls to reassigned numbers, while obtaining additional data to refine our pricing in light of our experience with usage by various kinds of user groups,” the FCC said in its announcement.
The FCC has been working on the database — which is intended to be used by callers to determine if a cell phone number has been reassigned to someone other than the individual seeking to be contacted — for more than three years. Knowing that a phone number has been reassigned can tell a company not to contact that number.
For collectors, the reassigned number database is going to be a central component of their text messaging process once Regulation F — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Debt Collection Rule — goes into effect. If a collector sends a text message to a consumer that does not respond to within 60 days, collectors will have to check the reassigned number database to ensure the number has not been given to someone else before sending another text message.
