Carrier Records

Art. 18B, Subchapter H — subscriber, billing, call-detail & cell-site records

Part of the Warrant Path template library. Templates last updated 2026-09-20 — what that date does and doesn’t mean.

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What this covers

Compels a wireless carrier (any provider — AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or smaller carriers) to produce subscriber, billing, call-detail, cell-site/location, and stored-content records tied to a target phone number or account for a defined date range. Historical/stored records only — not a tower dump (all devices at a tower) and not prospective/real-time location monitoring, each of which needs its own separately particularized warrant.

Property / data categories

Subscriber and business records — names, addresses, account-open date, length/type of service
Detailed billing records, including all billable calls and outgoing digits
Local and long-distance connection records, plus data-session times/durations and assigned IP addresses
Device/telephone identifiers — MAC, ESN, MEIN, MEID, MIN, SIM, MSISDN, IMSI, IMEI
Call-detail records including cell towers/sectors used and hand-off ('time on tower') data
Text messages (SMS/MMS/RTT) and voicemail content
Cell-site and historical location data (PCMD, NELOS, GPS, E-911, TDOA, and similar carrier location reports)
Browsing history and internet activity, including IP addresses and DNS lookups

Controlling authority

Art. 18B.354(b) — Affidavit must show a specific offense occurred and that the data sought is evidence of it, held by the named provider.
Art. 18B.354(c) — Only the electronic customer data described in the affidavit may be seized — the chapter's particularity requirement.
Art. 18B.351–.359 (Subchapter H) — The Texas analog to the federal Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2703.
Art. 18B.355(a)–(c) — Sets the 11-day execution deadline and who/how the provider may be served.
Art. 18B.356 — Sets the provider's 15-business-day compliance deadline after service.
Art. 18B.501 — Requires a finding of 'adverse result' from notice before ordering non-disclosure.

Common defects to check for before filing

Naming the wrong legal entity — carriers use DBA names or have been resold/merged
Treating the 11-day execution clock and 15-business-day compliance clock as the same deadline (they run from different triggers)
Requesting location/CSLI data without the case-specific pattern-of-life showing Carpenter requires
Skipping the custodian-authentication request, forcing a live records-custodian witness at trial
Overbroad date range — since the categories are broad by design, the date window is the main particularity lever; the category checklist below is a second lever — deselect what your facts don't support
Using this template for a cell-tower dump (all devices connected to a tower in a time window, not just your target) — that implicates many uninvolved people's data and needs its own, more particularized showing; don't fold it into a single-target stored-records request
Using this template to authorize prospective (real-time/future) location monitoring — this warrant compels production of historical, already-stored records only; ongoing tracking needs a separate tracking-device application and warrant under Subchapter H

Confirm with your prosecutor before citing any federal pen-register/trap-and-trace statute (18 U.S.C. § 3123(b)(1)(C)) inside this state Chapter 18B warrant — that combination should not be assumed to have survived unedited from an earlier federal-order template. This template is scoped to historical, already-stored carrier records for the date range you specify — it is not a tower-dump warrant and does not authorize prospective/real-time location tracking. Both of those need a separately particularized application; don't assume this template's affidavit language covers them.

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