CenturyLink, NTCA Endorse USTelecom Plan on Phantom Traffic
USTelecom’s proposal on dealing with phantom traffic was backed by CenturyLink Vice President Melissa Newman and NTCA Vice President Michael Romano. “It’s a great starting point,” Newman said Wednesday at the FCC’s day-long workshop on intercarrier compensation overhaul. The plan would create per-minute benchmarks for calls to signal what some in the industry call phantom traffic. “It’s all about costs and volumes and the original premise of these tariffs in rural areas was based on low volumes,” Newman said: She hopes FCC officials realize that “there’s agreement on this panel."
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Romano also urged the commission to require carriers to add details to calls -- in addition to the charge or calling party number, the operating company number and the jurisdictional information parameter. NTCA “by and large” supports USTelecom’s proposals, he said. Any “sample size” must be large enough to account for, say, “seasonal spikes” in phone traffic, he said. USTelecom is leading discussions among many companies in an effort to come up with an industry-endorsed set of changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation systems (CD April 5 p4). CenturyLink held out against a broad-based USF and intercarrier comp revamp the last time industry made a concerted effort for one, in 2006-2007. Rural companies like those represented by NTCA are the most likely to resist USF changes.
Iowa adopted a per-minute trigger to deal with phantom traffic, said Utilities Board member Krista Tanner. The FCC should take care in setting benchmarks, she said. “I think it all comes down to the minutes of use.” In Iowa, regulators said a per-minute increase of 100 percent over six months indicated phantom traffic.
FreeConferenceCall.com CEO David Erickson said per-minute benchmarks don’t go far enough to deal with the problem. He urged the commission to adopt rules for high-volume access tariffs, in addition to per-minute triggers and regulations on revenue-sharing agreements. Access rates should be “very low” and subsidies should come through the USF, Erickson said.
USTelecom Vice President Jonathan Banks said the FCC is headed in the right direction on intercarrier comp. The rulemaking notice needs “technical” modifications on narrow issues like feasibility, he said. Banks hopes the commission will move quickly on overarching and overdue action, he said. “Getting this done now, in the right way, would make a huge difference,” Banks said. “For way too long, we've let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”