Senate Bill Targets Rural Call Completion Problems, Intermediate Providers
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., introduced a bill addressing rural call completion problems Thursday, much to the satisfaction of some rural telco advocates. The five-page bill, called the Public Safety and Economic Security Communications Act, would target intermediate providers and push the FCC to outline service quality standards. Johnson’s office consulted with the FCC in crafting the legislation, his spokesman said.
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Although the FCC’s “rulemaking and ongoing investigation represent a step in the right direction, a more immediate resolution is needed,” Johnson said in his congressional record statement, seeking co-sponsors. “This legislation takes immediate action to stop the bad actors that are failing to complete calls to rural areas. The bill includes common sense reforms that will help end the discriminatory delivery of calls by requiring voice providers to register with the FCC and comply with basic service quality standards. The legislation will help ensure that small businesses, families, and emergency responders in every corner of South Dakota and across our country can once again rely upon connection of their incoming telephone calls.”
The FCC has taken recent steps, including an October order (http://fcc.us/1dVCJXR) (CD Oct 29/13 p2) barring callers from hearing false rings when the phone isn’t actually ringing. The rule took effect Jan. 31. Feb. 20, Windstream agreed to pay $2.5 million and implement a three-year plan to improve its performance to resolve (http://fcc.us/1gnKAye) an FCC investigation into the company’s rural call completion practices (CD Feb 21 p15). Last March, Level 3 agreed (http://bit.ly/1iFJuNg) to pay nearly $1 million to the U.S. Treasury, and meet call completion benchmarks in response to a separate FCC investigation (CD March 13/13 p7). Some states have also begun taking their own steps to combat problems in completing rural calls (CD March 12 p15).
Capitol Hill pressure on rural call completion problems has been high in the past. Last summer, Johnson joined with Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to introduce a resolution urging call completion action from the FCC. That resolution cleared the Commerce Committee. Several parties, including Comptel, NTCA, XO Communications and WTA, which represents small telcos in rural areas, have explicitly listed rural call completion issues on their congressional lobbying forms last year.
"I don’t think it conflicts with anything the FCC is doing,” WTA Director-Government Affairs Eric Keber told us. Nothing in the legislation should be construed to suggest the FCC is not moving ahead and addressing the issue properly, he said. The bill’s focus is on intermediate providers rather than the bigger telcos the FCC has focused on, Keber said. WTA has backed congressional action such as this, and the bill “works well with what we're doing at the FCC,” he remarked. Keber also suggested the bill could be useful from a “messaging point of view” as a signal to companies that are not abiding by the right practices: “There could be additional hammers coming down.”
Johnson is seeking co-sponsors for the bill, said his spokesman, declining to say whether he had any upon introduction. The bill would “build upon” FCC efforts by “directing the agency to establish basic quality standards,” a Johnson news release said (http://1.usa.gov/1kPdKd9). Providers that handle phone calls would have to register with the FCC and abide by what Johnson’s office calls “basic quality standards,” established within 180 days of the legislation’s enactment, Johnson’s office said.
The bill’s scope of application “shall apply regardless of the format by which any communication or service is provided, the protocol or format by which the transmission of such communication or service is achieved, or the regulatory classification of such communication or service,” said bill text provided by Johnson’s office. The legislation is not yet online. The text also says “nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the regulatory classification of any communication or service.” Keber speculated that the bill drafters may have wanted to avoid getting into the Title I and Title II service classification debates. The registry would have to be publicly available on the FCC website, according to the bill text. The text specifies that the legislation would create a registry for any “intermediate provider that offers or holds itself out as offering the capability to transmit covered voice communications from one destination to another and that charges any rate to any other entity (including an affiliated entity) for the transmission.”
NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield called the bill an “important piece of legislation,” in a statement. “While the FCC has taken a number of important steps already, the problem continues -- and this bill would bring least cost routers out of the shadows, help to ensure the reliability of our nation’s networks, and promote the safety and well-being of rural Americans,” Bloomfield said. The bill “complements the work being done at the Commission on call completion” and “provides additional assurance that all calls will be completed with a high quality of service,” said WTA Vice President-Government Affairs Derrick Owens. Others such as USTelecom and Comptel did not immediately comment, nor did the FCC.
Keber said more than a third of the Senate has signed onto a past letter expressing concerns about rural call completion problems. “There’s a decent chance of it moving,” Keber said of the Senate legislation, depending on whether it’s able to get enough calendar time in a schedule-crunched year with no surplus of legislative days. (jhendel@warren-news.com),