The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed...
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an earlier court decision favoring CenturyLink over Sprint in Central Telephone Company of Virginia v. Sprint (http://1.usa.gov/13GURxq). Sprint had appealed the earlier decision. The dispute concerned an interconnection agreement (ICA) involving VoIP…
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traffic in which Sprint had stopped paying, which initially prompted CenturyLink to go to court. Sprint had paid access charges for such traffic from the outset of the agreements, in 2004 and 2005, through 2009. Sprint judged that the agreement rules “did not apply to long distance VoIP traffic that traveled over FGD [Feature Group D] trunks” and “that CenturyLink had billed Sprint at an improperly high rate for VoIP traffic since May 1, 2007,” according to the court document. The court said Sprint could have included a provision to exempt long-distance VoIP traffic traveling over FGD trunks when the agreements were drafted. It criticized the ambiguity and said the agreement must be read to apply to this type of traffic traveling over this type of trunk. In Sprint’s appeal, it argued that state commissions must first consider interconnection agreements before the initial court could have ruled. It also argued that the district judge should have recused himself because his individual retirement account owned shares in CenturyLink, a fact he had noted and judged not reason for recusal. The court decision Monday said state commissions don’t have to provide the first instance of reviewing such agreements before a district court does, and said the judge “did not violate the recusal statute, and therefore did not abuse his discretion in deciding that neither recusal nor vacatur was appropriate. ... Sprint must do more than identify an ambiguity in a contract it drafted. ... In the face of ambiguity, we construe the relevant provisions of the NC [North Carolina] ICA against Sprint and in favor of CenturyLink.” “Sprint is disappointed in the decision and is studying it to determine whether further review is warranted,” said a spokesman by email.