AT&T URGES FCC TO NOT GRANT BELLSOUTH LNP COST RECOVERY REQUEST
AT&T urged the FCC to not grant a BellSouth (BS) request to let ILECs recover certain wireless local number portability (LNP) costs until it had shown a more direct link between the costs and the new LNP requirements. BS asked the Commission to let ILECs assess a federal user charge on end users to recover wireless LNP costs and to waive recovery limits for end-user charges, which have been in effect for wireline LNP since 1999. Verizon Wireless said it generally backed BellSouth’s request, but only if the FCC spelled out that carriers couldn’t recover those costs from other operators.
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In a petition filed last month at the FCC, BellSouth estimated it had spent $38 million to enable wireless porting. It said wireline carriers should have a “reasonable opportunity” to recover costs to implement wireless LNP (WLNP) under Sec. 251 of the Telecom Act, which covers LNP requirements. The company sought a waiver to modify its current end-user LNP charge by extending the recovery period beyond a 5-year cap or modifying its current rate. In Feb. 1999, the FCC allowed ILECs to recover the costs of providing LNP through a federally tariffed monthly charge on end users, with a cap of 5 years. BellSouth said that although cost recovery by ILECs was FCC-regulated, other carriers could recover long-term LNP costs in any “lawful” manner. It began charging end users for wireline LNP in May 1999 at a rate of 35 cents a month, which is set to expire in May 2004. While the company told the FCC it was aware it would incur costs to deploy wireless LNP, those costs weren’t known at the time it instituted the end-user charge. Wireless LNP took effect in the top 100 markets Nov. 24.
In comments to the FCC this week on the request, AT&T argued that BellSouth had summarized only a cost study involving the $38 million related to wireless LNP without providing sufficient details as to how it had arrived at that figure. “Even that number is an approximation,” AT&T said. “The Commission’s standard for the grant of a waiver in these circumstances cannot be treated cavalierly. BellSouth bears a more substantial burden of proof than its petition has carried.” AT&T said BellSouth also must show that the costs it sought to recover: (1) Weren’t initial implementation costs recovered in the charges imposed on end users since 1999. (2) Didn’t support other services in addition to wireless LNP. (3) Wouldn’t have been incurred except for the FCC order putting wireless LNP into effect. “The Commission must not grant BellSouth’s petition unless and until it is satisfied that BellSouth has met these more exacting standards,” AT&T said.
Verizon Wireless told the FCC BellSouth had indicated it would assess it “multiple transaction charges” to recover several wireless LNP-related expenses, “yet none of this revenue is referenced in BellSouth’s petition.” Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, said in the first month of porting it had learned BS would impose transaction-based charges on wireless carriers that asked to port BellSouth numbers. That included a charge of $15 per port if carriers sent requests through a fax system and $3.50 per port if carriers used BellSouth’s hourly-rated coordination fee for ports outside of regular business hours or special arrangement “cut-overs,” such as multiline business requests. “These charges are inconsistent with the Commission’s cost-recovery mechanism for incumbent LECs,” Verizon Wireless said. It asked the FCC to clarify that BellSouth couldn’t recover porting costs from other carriers and that an end-user surcharge was the only appropriate tool for ILECs to recover such costs. “The Commission should declare that any LEC-imposed carrier-to-carrier porting charges are prohibited,” it said. “In the event that the Commission does not so declare, BellSouth should not be permitted to adjust its end-user LNP charge until there is a full accounting of its intercarrier LNP assessment revenue, so as to preclude double recovery.”
Verizon Wireless also called on the Commission to monitor BellSouth’s provision of wireless LNP to ensure that it was effectively providing the services to its customers for which it sought recovery. “Given the cost recovery, customers should be able to expect that requests to port landline numbers to wireless carriers will be completed within the FCC’s prescribed 4-day porting interval,” it said.
SBC urged the Commission to grant BellSouth’s request and allow other similarly situated ILECs to recover such costs. SBC said it would continue to incur “substantial, additional costs” to implement intermodal wireless LNP, although it didn’t provide a dollar figure. “Given the state of deployment of WLNP at the time the existing end-user charges were tariffed, SBC and other incumbent LECs could not, and did not, include these direct costs of implementing intermodal WLNP in their tariffed cost-recovery charge,” SBC said. “Consequently, it would be unreasonable to bar recovery of those costs now.” It said that if ILECs couldn’t recover costs that other carriers were free to recover, ILECs wouldn’t bear the costs of LNP on a “competitively neutral basis” as required under the Telecom Act.
Similarly, Verizon also backed BellSouth’s request, telling the FCC it had incurred similar WLNP costs and would like authority to recover them. “The least disruptive and confusing way for Verizon to recover these costs would be for it to extend its existing number portability surcharges for an additional 4 months,” it said, noting that other options outlined by BellSouth also would be acceptable. “After nearly 5 years, customers are accustomed to seeing these charges on their bills. New charges or charges in different amounts would only raise questions in their minds, confuse them and prompt them to call the carrier or the Commission.” USTA also stressed that before Nov. 24, the ILEC costs associated with WLNP would have been unknown and “speculative in nature.” It said: “Moreover, because of the speculative nature of these costs, the FCC would have rejected them” as they related to cost-recovery charges.