A disputed $0.0007 uniform terminating access rate may work as an...

Thursday it asked the FCC to adopt a bill-and- keep system. “The commission can and should adopt a bill- and-keep approach,” but if the FCC “decides it needs an interim transition plan, a uniform terminating rate of no higher than $0.0007” a minute “is the most equitable approach,” coalition executive director Jim Kohlenberger said. Before endorsing a uniform terminating rate, the coalition supported bill and keep in 2005. The Wireline Bureau is said to be considering three approaches to revamping compensation: A uniform rate, bill and keep and reciprocal compensation (CD Sept 15 p2). Verizon’s proposed $0.0007 uniform rate is similar to bill and keep in that it would allow terminating carriers to pass along unrecovered costs to customers through increased subscriber line charges. Under a true bill-and-keep system, though, terminating carriers would charge originating carriers nothing and pass all terminating costs to customers. VON’s approach differs from that only in that it also would allow carriers, in “limited circumstances,” to recover costs from an “explicit subsidy,” the coalition said in the ex parte.