Iowa Regulators Back Qwest on Traffic-Pumping Complaint
The Iowa Utilities Board ruled in Qwest’s favor on a traffic pumping complaint against eight local exchange carriers. But the carriers are challenging the action at the FCC. The board decided Friday that Great Lakes Communications, Superior Telephone and other local rural telcos were engaging in “unreasonable practices” that violate their tariffs, Qwest said. Great Lakes and Superior immediately petitioned the FCC for a ruling that federal law preempts the board from acting against the local companies.
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An official order may not be published for weeks, while the Iowa board decides on the size of the refund that it will require of the telcos, board spokesman Rob Hillesland said. “There will be more discovery and details in the order,” he said. “But the board stated at Friday’s meeting that there should be refunds.” The board’s decision made reference to providing notice of its ruling to the FCC, he said.
The board hadn’t responded by Monday to the petition to the FCC by Great Lakes and Superior, Hillesland said. The carriers seek a ruling from the FCC, in the document’s words, “that all matters relating to interstate access charges, including the rates therefor and revenue derived therefrom, are within its exclusive federal jurisdiction and thus any attempts by state authorities to regulate interstate access charges are beyond their authority.”
Qwest’s state complaint was “just one facet of Qwest’s unlawful campaign against competing carriers and conference- service providers -- a campaign that includes harassing litigation in venues across the country and unlawful self- help refusals to pay access charges -- that Qwest and other large interexchange carriers have been conducting for more than three years,” the petition to the FCC said. “Qwest’s complaint was premised on its assertion that the LECs’ termination of calls to conference, chat-line, and in some cases, international service provides constituted ’traffic pumping’ that is somehow unlawful.”
Qwest accused local phone companies in Iowa of having made deals with companies that offer free calling services such as conference calling, chat lines, recordings and adult content. The telcos, which provided the free calling services with local numbers, charged callers’ long distance carriers for completing the calls to access the free services, capitalizing on the higher rates they're permitted to charge because they serve rural areas, Qwest said.
“Qwest and other long distance carriers have filed complaints with state commissions and the FCC challenging the legality of these forced charges and raising important public interest concerns, including that calls to numbers offering adult content and other inappropriate material do not provide parents and guardians with the capability to block such material from their children,” the company said. It called the resulting “windfall” traffic-pumping profits a drag on long-distance carriers and a source of increased costs to consumers.
“Qwest is very pleased” with the Iowa decision, said Steve Davis, senior vice president for public policy and government relations. “We agree with the Iowa Utilities Board, as well as the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate, that these telephone companies and their free calling partners have engaged in unreasonable practices that harmed and misled consumers, regulators and companies like Qwest.” The Iowa ruling “is a seminal decision which other states, the courts and the FCC will follow to eliminate this form of regulatory arbitrage throughout the nation.”