COMMISSION EXPECTED TO REEXAMINE TRAFFIC PUMPING SOO

摘要

The FCC may soon take a new look at the legality of traffic stimulation that rural local exchange carriers are accused of carrying out through arrangements with free-conferencing providers, industry officials said in interviews. They said two recent events have raised the profile at the FCC of what big carriers call traffic pumping: An Iowa Utilities Board decision last month requiring eight rural LECs to refund unauthorized intrastate switched access charges billed to Qwest, AT&T and Sprint, and an AT&T letter saying Google Voice is flouting an FCC ban on traditional telco "self-help" by blocking calls to numbers with high access charges. Traffic pumping probably will get attention at the FCC because aides consider the matter important and the Iowa Utilities Board decision has made it significantly more prominent, USTelecom Vice President Glenn Reynolds said. The decision provides considerable evidence that rural carriers are taking part in an illegal scheme, he said. nnThe FCC showed interest in the issue by circulating an order last month on a dispute between Qwest and Farmers and Merchants Mutual Telephone Company, one of the companies that the Iowa board ruled against, said Ross Buntrock, an Arent Fox lawyer representing the RLECs at the FCC. The commission probably is interested in the decision, because the board didn't defer to any FCC decision and "completely overstepped its authority," he said. The Iowa order may be the "biggest catalyst" for FCC action, because it "makes clear that this is not a two-sided, nuanced debate but a very explicit, no-holds-barred scheme to game the system," said CEO David Frankel of ZipDX, an audioconferencing company that charges for its services and competes with companies like FreeConferenceCall. "Even if I try to set aside my own interests and look at it objectively, I still believe [the Iowa order] says that these guys, while smart, are contributing no net positive value to the universe and are not particularly upstanding businesspeople."