before the federal communications commission … · 3) telepacific does not have terminating call...
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Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 200554 ____________________________________ ) In the Matter of ) WC Docket No. 13‐39 Rural Call Completion ) ____________________________________ )
REPLY COMMENTS OF TELEPACIFIC COMMUNICATIONS
U.S. TelePacific Corp. and Mpower Communications Corp. (each d/b/a TelePacific
Communications) (“TelePacific”) respectfully submit these Reply Comments in support of the
Petition for Reconsideration filed by COMPTEL (“COMPTEL Petition”) in the above‐referenced
docket.1
Introduction and Summary TelePacific files these reply comments to support prompt Commission action on two
primary issues outlined in COMPTEL’s Petition.
First, the Order2 dramatically changed the definition of to which carriers its rules would
apply, thereby increasing the number by 150%.3 This violates the Administrative Procedure Act
(“APA”) because the Commission made the change without requesting or receiving comments
on the issue.4
1 COMPTEL, Petition for Reconsideration, WC Docket No. 13‐39 (filed Jan. 16, 2014) (“COMPTEL Petition”). 2 In the Matter of Rural Call Completion, WC Docket No. 13‐39, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 13‐135 (rel. Nov. 8, 2013) (“Order”). 3 COMPTEL Petition at p. 5 and fn 8. 4 Id. at pp. 4 & 9. (“In the NPRM, the Commission did not ask whether it should define ‘small provider’ for purposes of the exemption…more broadly or more narrowly…” and “The fact that no commenting party urged the Commission to substitute 100,000 subscriber lines for 100,000 subscribers…conclusively demonstrates that commenting parties had no reason to believe that the number of lines served…was an issue….”
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Second, in so doing, the Commission imposed significant new information collection
requirements, which will be burdensome and expensive to all carriers but, in particular, to the
newly covered small providers. These small providers have fewer than 100,000 subscribers but,
as companies often catering to business customers, have many times as many subscriber lines
and thus, suddenly and without notice or the ability to comment, fall under the proposed rules.
There is no opposition to, only support for, COMPTEL’s Petition While there were several Oppositions filed to various Petitions for Reconsideration of
this Order, none were filed in Opposition to COMPTEL’s Petition and two carriers filed in
support of the COMPTEL Petition.5 It should also be noted that the Rural Carrier Groups, NECA,
NCTA, ERTA and WTA, filed Reply Comments on June 11, 2013, in which they stated that
The Rural Associations agree the Commission should consider excluding originating long‐distance providers with fewer than 100,000 retail long‐distance customers from its proposed data retention and reporting requirements, as available evidence suggests the majority of rural call completion complaints are associated with very large long distance providers or VoIP providers.6 Two of the newly covered companies have now commented on the burden
a) XO7 states that it has not historically pulled from its switches or maintained the
required data throughout its network.8 Further, the data it does collect resides in
various databases, depending upon the underlying platform and the business uses
5 The Oregon and Nebraska Commissions filed Oppositions to the Sprint and US Telecom Petitions for
Reconsideration on 3/4/2014 and an Opposition by the Rural Carrier Groups, NECA, NTCA, ERTA and WTA, was filed on 3/4/2014 but opposing only the Sprint, Transcom and U.S.Telecom/ITTA Petitions. Comments supporting, in whole or in part, the COMPTEL Petition were filed on 3/4/2014 by XO and HyperCube and Sprint filed, indicating that it did not oppose any of the Petitions. 6 Reply Comments of NTCA, NECA, WTA and ERTA, WC Docket No. 13‐39 (filed June 11, 2013) (“Rural Carrier Reply Comments”). 7 Comments of XO Communications, LLC in Support of Petitions for Reconsideration, WC Docket No. 13‐39 (filed Mar. 4, 2014) (“XO Comments”). 8 Id. at 3.
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for the data, and not in a single database from which the required reports could be
pulled.9 For example, in order to use the multiple call records typically generated for
each individual call, one for each leg of the call routed through its switches, XO
would need to implement a system to match all of the call records from the various
switches into a single record for each call, something XO is still trying to determine
how to accomplish.10
b) TelePacific11 indicates that it cannot use its existing call records to report all the
requested data.
1) Originating call records do not allow accurate identification of the OCNs of
terminating carriers, in particular, if the called number has been ported.12
2) Of the six unique types of switches in its network, four of the switch types
produce standard Extended Bellcore Automatic Message Accounting Format
(“EBAF”) records which do not capture the call disposition information required to
differentiate ring‐no‐answer, busy and non‐working‐number.13
3) TelePacific does not have terminating call records for calls that are not completed
to other TelePacific customers and its current contracts do not provide the option of
obtaining these call records.14
9 Id. 10 Id. at 3‐4. 11 Comments of U.S. TelePacific Corp., (On the Commission’s compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (“PRA”) in WC Docket No. 13‐39), OMB Control No. 3060‐1186 (filed Feb. 28, 2014), (“TelePacific Comments”) with attached Declaration of Nancy Lubamersky in Support of Paperwork Reduction Act Comments of U.S. TelePacific Corp. (“Lubamersky Declaration”). Attached. 12 Id. at 4. 13 Lubamersky Declaration at 2. 14 TelePacific Comments at 5.
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4) Even if TelePacific sought to obtain these terminating records, the volume of data
is substantial, the records would be needed solely for purposes of reporting under
the proposed rules, and TelePacific still would not be able to report two of the
required categories, busy and unassigned number.15 As an example, during a recent
seven day traffic sample, TelePacific’s customers attempted to make more than 3.5
million long distance calls to telephone numbers assigned to more than 185 OCNs in
California alone.16
5) Even if TelePacific succeeded in obtaining all necessary terminating call records, it
does not have a means by which to compare the originating and terminating calls
records to determine some of the information required for the proposed call
completion reports.17 Its best estimate at this time is that just to develop such a
process – for the sole purpose of creating these reports ‐‐ would take months and
cost more than $50,000.18
Conclusion
TelePacific supports the Commission’s efforts to ensure rural call completion, however,
in light of the APA violations, the fact that the rural associations did not object to COMPTEL’s
Petition, and the substantive evidence in the record regarding the substantial cost and time
that would be necessary for small carriers with less than 100,000 subscribers to gather and
process data to be used solely for the rural call completion reports, TelePacific urges the
Commission to:
15 Lubamersky Declaration at 3‐4. 16 TelePacific Comments at 5‐6. 17 Id. at 6. 18 Id.
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Grant the COMPTEL Petition and revise the small provider exemption to be the 100,000
subscriber exemption from the Notice either permanently or at least on an interim basis
pending Commission action on a notice seeking comment on a proposal to substitute 100,000
subscriber lines instead and the record created in response to such notice
Respectfully submitted, __s/ Nancy E. Lubamersky___ Nancy E. Lubamersky Vice President, Public Policy & Strategic Initiative Marilyn H. Ash, Director, Public Policy TelePacific Communications 515 S. Flower St., 47th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90071 Tel: (510) 995‐5602 Fax: (510) 995‐5603 [email protected] [email protected] Dated: March 11, 2014
