Carolina West Wireless Seeks Waiver of FCC Rural Call Completion Rule

Carolina West Wireless and CWW's Clear Stream Communications sought a waiver Wednesday of a rule in the FCC 2013 rural call completion order that requires a telco to count subscriber lines of affiliates toward the determination of whether a telco serves fewer than 100,000 subscriber lines. The order exempted long-distance service providers that make the initial long-distance call path choice for fewer than 100,000 subscriber lines. CWW said it doesn’t believe the subscriber lines of its affiliates “have any influence over CWW’s call routing decisions” and has unsuccessfully sought FCC reconsideration of the rule. The commission invited CWW and other carriers to file waiver requests, CWW said. If the agency grants CWW’s waiver request, the telco “would fall below the de minimis threshold, and would be exempt from the rural call completion data collection and reporting requirements,” CWW said.