AT&T filed its 2nd lawsuit against Ia. free-call services. The company alleged that 2 Ia. local exchange carriers and a provider of free group chat-line services carried out an unlawful arbitrage scheme exploiting a loophole in access charge regulations that resulted in AT&T抯 being billed for hugely inflated terminating access charges. AT&T抯 suit in U.S. Dist. Court, Des Moines, named as defendants Reasnor Telephone, Sully Telephone Assn. and chat-line provider 揇oes 1-10.?AT&T in Jan. sued 7 rural Ia. incumbents and free-call providers in the same court. AT&T alleged that the companies engaged in a traffic-pumping scheme in which the free-call provider advertised Ia. numbers to build up traffic volumes and terminating access revenue for the participating telcos, which split their access revenue with the free-call provider. AT&T said Reasnor, Ia., has only 275 phone lines, but terminating access billings in that town soared from under $3,000 monthly last fall to over $650,000 monthly now.
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