Industry Backs FCC Access Stimulation FNPRM
Industry largely backed the FCC’s Further NPRM on curbing access stimulation, in comments posted Wednesday in docket 18-155 (see 2207140055). The item proposes clarifying rules adopted in 2019 to include IP-enabled services (IPES) providers.
The FCC "must remain vigilant and move swiftly to eliminate new schemes as they develop," said USTelecom, saying interexchange carriers are "in the best position to determine when access stimulation is occurring." The group suggested modifying the proposed definition of an IPES provider by striking "two way voice" and clarifying such providers are those that “permit users to receive calls that originate on the public switched telephone network ... or that originate from an Internet Protocol service."
Amending the definition of an IPES provider would “close loopholes” USTelecom members are currently seeing, it said. The FCC should also abandon its proposal to include "end office" language because it "could create new potential loopholes" by “complicating trigger calculations,” USTelecom said. AT&T backed USTelecom's proposals. The “only way to stop all forms of access arbitrage is to move to complete bill-and-keep, including originating switched access,” it said. The FCC should “reaffirm that certain burden-shifting presumptions apply when determining whether the triggers have been met,” AT&T said.
Apply the burden-shifting approach for complaints against competitive local telephone companies to IPES providers, said Verizon. It's “crucial to a long-distance carrier’s ability to take action against an access stimulating IPES provider that has refused to self-identify,” the carrier said: IPES providers “should bear the burden of showing that their traffic ratio is below the commission’s triggers.”
Access stimulating IPES providers should be treated as “responsible parties with equivalent status under the new rules to that of access stimulating (LECs),” said Lumen. It opposed including LECs or intermediate tandem providers as responsible parties. Lumen also sought clarification that interexchange carriers can't withhold payment from intermediate terminating tandem providers "based on a concern that access stimulating LECs were not complying with its access stimulation rules."
IPES providers should be "accountable for their own traffic" and pay the charges when delivering traffic "if the terminating-to-originating traffic ratio for the IPES provider exceeds the triggers established in the commission’s rules," said Inteliquent. The FCC could also “clarify how the rules operate when access stimulators attempt to evade the rules through call-rejection schemes,” it said.
The proposals are a "meaningful step to eliminate incentives to engage in access stimulation," said Bandwidth. The FCC should "examine both originating and terminating access stimulation and any tariffed charges imposed by the entities in the call path between the [interexchange carrier] and access stimulator," it said, and any rules applied to IPES providers should mirror those that apply to LECs. Bandwidth also backed calculating traffic ratios based on the "end office" and AT&T's request to clarify the definition of an "end user."
Aureon said the FCC's proposals "would not be feasible" because of the "limited extent" to which intermediate access providers have access to information on "the traffic they route for other carriers." Requiring these providers to calculate traffic ratios of IPES providers would require them to also "determine traffic volumes to which they do not have access" and "somehow obtain information completely separate from the traffic that intermediate access providers currently route," Aureon said. Compliance "would be impossible for Aureon" and "substantially unfair to intermediate access providers," it said.