Adoption of Verizon’s plan to revamp intercarrier compensation wo...

cable associations said Verizon’s Sept. 12 plan (CD Sept 15 p2) could decimate competitors’ interconnection rights. “Facilities-based competitors are beginning to have an impact in this marketplace,” but only as a result of the current interconnection regime, CompTel and NCTA said. Adopting Verizon’s proposal “would erode substantially the statutory and contractual rights and obligation[s] upon which facilities-based competition depends.” But though CompTel and NCTA rejected Verizon’s interconnection ideas, they supported unifying terminating access rates for all traffic. They didn’t opine on Verizon’s proposal to set a uniform $0.0007 rate. “At this time, we're not taking a position on specific rate levels,” a CompTel spokeswoman said. The competitors’ support for unifying rates “is good news and demonstrates the broad public interest appeal of that approach,” a Verizon spokesman said. “Verizon plans to reach out to the parties to find workable solutions to the interconnection issues raised.” CompTel and NCTA said the Verizon plan would give incumbent local exchange carriers “control over key decisions affecting CLEC networks,” and permit incumbent local exchange carriers to avoid “obligations under existing agreements” and “state arbitration of future disputes.” The plan is too vague, they said. Verizon proposes default compensation and interconnection rules, but doesn’t explain how the rules would be implemented between two interconnecting carriers, nor how carriers may obtain different arrangements, the groups said. Verizon’s proposal to require terminating carriers to “establish at least one [point of interconnection] per LATA” clashes with the 1996 Telecom Act, CompTel and NCTA said. The Act required ILECs to interconnect with requesting carriers at “any technically feasible point,” they said. The Verizon rule would permit ILECs to dictate where competitors should interconnect, and their choice of network technology, CompTel and NCTA said. For example, if an ILEC designated only circuit-switched facilities as interconnection points, competitors would be forced to convert IP traffic to a circuit-switched format, they said. Also, because the Verizon rule doesn’t distinguish between CLECs and ILECs, CLECs too would have to designate interconnection points, the competitors said. That’s wrong, because Congress only imposed interconnection requirements on incumbents, they said.