Telcos, Cable Seek New FCC Rules on Access Stimulation; AT&T Pulls Forbearance Bid
Major telco and cable entities sought FCC rules to curb access stimulation, and AT&T withdrew a forbearance petition in docket 16-363. "Despite prior Commission efforts, a handful of carriers continue to take advantage of the intercarrier compensation system through the…
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use of services, like free conference calling, that generate high volumes of inbound calling to ordinary telephone numbers associated with remote locations," said a filing posted Friday in docket 01-92 by AT&T, Frontier Communications, NCTA, NTCA, Verizon, Windstream, WTA and USTelecom. "Those practices result in substantial charges for transport of the stimulated traffic to reach those locations, which are ultimately paid for by interexchange customers." The commission should "adopt rules to require carriers that are engaged in access stimulation to bear financial responsibility for all terminating switched transport costs (including both flat-rated and usage-sensitive charges) between their end office (or remote or functional equivalent) and the tandem switch to which the terminating carrier requires inbound calls to be routed," they said. "Carriers engaged in access stimulation would not render bills to interexchange carriers for terminating tandem switched transport with respect to stimulated traffic, and would be required to pay the terminating tandem switched transport charges in lieu of interexchange carriers for these calls to other access providers of such transport. Such rules would resolve a significant component of AT&T’s forbearance petition." An AT&T statement Friday, noting it had asked to withdraw its petition for forbearance from certain switched access rules, said: "The Commission has recently sought comment to refresh the record on more comprehensive reform. Moreover, AT&T joined a number of other parties in proposing a consensus solution to a substantial portion of the arbitrage activities that AT&T’s petition targets. AT&T urges the Commission both to adopt this consensus solution promptly and to complete the comprehensive reform of intercarrier compensation that it launched in 2011.”