The FCC should reverse its decision allowing payphone service providers...
The FCC should reverse its decision allowing payphone service providers (PSPs) to file retroactive claims for payphone compensation for certain prepaid calls, the American PrePaid Phonecall Association told Wireline Bureau officials and aides to commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Ajit Pai and…
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Mignon Clyburn last week (http://xrl.us/boc34e). The ruling lets PSPs file claims for prepaid calls where the completing carrier received no payphone-specific coding digits, and thus had no notice the call was payphone originated, APPPA said in its ex parte filing describing the meetings. If the decision stands, prepaid calling card and PSP customers will be harmed, because the businesses “will be forced to prospectively increase the payphone surcharges on their products in order to recover for this retroactive liability,” the association said. PSPs and completing carriers must work together to improve the reliability of the transmission of payphone-specific coding digits, it said. “The burden of retroactive charges skews the respective sides’ bargaining positions too far in the PSPs’ favor” and makes the parties unlikely to work together toward a solution, it said. Without a solution, “prepaid providers are even more likely to block payphone-originated calls, which will remove a significant revenue source for PSPs,” APPPA said. “This will undermine the widespread deployment of payphone services to the benefit of the general public, in contravention of the Commission’s statutory obligation."