Payphones must not be forgotten as the nation...
Payphones must not be forgotten as the nation transitions to an all-IP communications network, the American Public Communications Council (APCC) told the FCC in a letter Tuesday (http://bit.ly/XHiqSV). In order to fulfill Section 271 of the Communications Act, which requires…
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that payphone service providers be “fairly compensated” for every call, the commission “needs to address how the requirements of its regulations and orders will be implemented as part of any transition to next generation IP networks,” the payphone association said. Of particular concern are “dial-around” calls, which are generally those dialed by an end-user without depositing a coin. APCC petitioned in 2005 for a declaratory ruling that completing carriers were required to pay dial-around compensation for calls converted to IP format for long haul traffic, but the FCC has not yet ruled, it said. “Even if the commission ultimately decides that some forms of IP-enabled communications are not telecommunications in some other context, a dial-around call made from a payphone is a ‘call’ subject to compensation under Section 276,” the association said, “regardless of whether, or to what extent, the communications traverses an IP network after it leaves the payphone.”