FCC CLARIFIES CLEC ACCESS CHARGE RULES
With commissioners noting the complexity of the issue, the FCC at its agenda meeting Thurs. clarified some of its rules for CLEC access charges, but generally affirmed a 3- year-old order limiting how much CLECs can charge. FCC Wireline Bureau Chief William Maher said the agency opted to deny petitions for reconsideration that it thought would have resulted in higher access rates.
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The FCC in April 2001 ruled CLECs couldn’t charge fees for access that exceeded the fees charged by competing incumbent LECs. The agency gave CLECs a 3-year transition, expiring June 21, 2004, in which CLECs could charge more than that but not above certain benchmarks, an FCC staff member said at the meeting. The 2001 order was the result of complaints by long distance companies that unregulated CLECs were charging much higher rates than ILECs. The order was “largely successful,” with rates becoming lower and disputes less common, said Victoria Schlesinger, attorney-advisor in the Wireline Bureau’s Pricing Policy Div. However, she said, the agency clarified areas where there was confusion about how the rules applied.
The clarifications appear to deal with situations such as those raised by US LEC and NewSouth, where there was confusion about whether access charges could be levied and if so how much. For example, US LEC sought clarification of its right to charge access when it transported wireless calls from a wireless carrier’s customer to an 800 number assigned to a long distance carrier’s customer.
One clarification basically said US LEC couldn’t charge the full benchmark rate if it was performing such a middleman function. According to an FCC news release, “a competitive LEC is entitled to charge the full benchmark rate if it provides an IXC [long distance company] with access to the competitive LEC’s own end-users.” The US LEC situation doesn’t meet that standard because the CLEC isn’t transporting traffic generated by its own end users, an agency official explained.
A 2nd clarification states that in a situation such as the one raised by US LEC, the access rate can’t be higher than the rate an ILEC charges for the specific functions performed. In other words, if the function is limited to switching and transport, the access charge can’t be higher than what an ILEC charges for switching and transport.
A 3rd clarification guides CLECs in determining which of 2 ILEC switching rates they must match. An FCC official explained that while ILECs have both end office and tandem switches, CLECs generally have only one switch. This clarification explains that: (1) If the CLEC is originating or terminating traffic, the function is comparable to an ILEC end office rate. (2) If the CLEC is passing traffic from one carrier to another, the comparable rate is the ILEC tandem rate.
A final clarification involves specialized cases in which a CLEC is competing against a price-cap ILEC [for example Qwest] in a rural area. It tells CLECs that if the ILEC charges a presubscribed interexchange carrier charge (PICC), the CLEC also can charge a PICC.
While the FCC didn’t offer much detail, the agency denied 7 petitions for reconsideration, filed after the order was approved 3 years ago. They were filed by a number of companies including Focal Communications, Qwest and the Rural Independent Competitive Alliance.
“This is an incredibly complex issue,” said Comr. Abernathy. She said it was important to bring clarity to these issues because parties need to know what they can charge. “I think the cut we make is pretty basic, permitting carriers to impose charges for services they provide but not for services they do not provide,” she said. Abernathy said every party probably won’t agree with the FCC’s decision but it will provide clarity and help solve disputes. Comr. Adelstein said the decision will allow CLECs to recover “reasonable access tariffs but limit arbitrage activities.”
AT&T said the decision “upholds the agency’s long-held, common-sense policy that limits companies’ ability to charge only for the services they provide.” AT&T said “the fact that the issue had to be addressed at all highlights the need for overall intercarrier compensation reform.”
FCC Considers Nationwide One-Call Number
Acting on another telecom issue, the FCC opened a rulemaking to select a national 3-digit number that contractors and others could call to notify telephone carriers, energy companies and others with underground facilities before digging. Many local jurisdictions have “one-call” telephone numbers but the Pipeline Security Act mandated a national, “abbreviated” number. The FCC said the 70 one-call centers throughout the nation, serving a variety of geographic areas, are usually accessed by dialing toll- free or local numbers. The N. American Numbering Council (NANC) has recommended 811 be used as the nationwide toll- free dialing code. The FCC asked for comment on NANC’s recommendation and “tentatively concluded” that use of a regular area code wouldn’t be practical because it would “potentially render eight million telephone numbers unusable.” The issue has homeland security implications because “damage from excavation activities can cause outages to our nation’s energy supply, communications networks, law enforcement agencies, hospitals, air traffic control operations, emergency response providers and military bases,” the FCC said.