USTelecom offered the FCC a plan to reduce ‘phantom traffic’ by r...
USTelecom offered the FCC a plan to reduce “phantom traffic” by requiring telecom providers to send signaling information identifying themselves and the type of traffic being sent, with FCC penalties for violations. Carriers have become increasingly concerned about terminating…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
such traffic, which lacks identification of the carrier responsible for paying termination costs and/or information on how much the calls should cost. Under the plan, signaling information would be delivered to tandem and terminating carriers along with the calls, so billing could be created and originating carriers identified. USTelecom said in a Nov. 10 ex parte filing that the FCC could “deter signaling manipulation by vigorously enforcing the proposed rules and imposing significant penalties for violations.” The filing outlined a meeting between members of the FCC Wireline Bureau and representatives of Alltel, BellSouth, Hickory Tech, Iowa Telecom, SBC, Smart City Telecom and Verizon. USTelecom told the FCC staffers the proposal “reflects a broad consensus among companies operating in the converged telecom industry.” The group said they agreed phantom traffic isn’t the result of network limitations or disputes among carriers about the appropriate rate for terminating the calls. The signaling information would have to include the telephone number assigned to the calling party, which would determine the “proper jurisdiction of traffic” for billing purposes, USTelecom said. The group is still working out the details of the plan but “we agree that these rules should apply to all traffic on the PSTN” as well as “all traffic destined for the PSTN from other networks.” The basic idea is for carriers to put needed information into the originating signaling stream without having to “deploy new/modified networks just to comply with the rule.” Other parts of the plan: (1) Intermediate providers must pass on without alternation the telephone number information it receives through signaling. (2) Traffic has to be routed according to the Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG) to “limit providers’ ability to avoid identification of traffic.” (3) Originating carriers must do a local number portability query before forwarding a call, which USTelecom said would “reduce instances where un-queried traffic enters local networks, which can cause non-local traffic to be routed on local trunks and raise questions regarding who or what to bill.” (4) The FCC should assess fines for each violation taking into account “willfulness and recurrence of the provider’s violations.”