FCC Denies FeatureGroup IP Forbearance
The FCC denied a FeatureGroup IP forbearance petition late Wednesday, avoiding a decision on whether access charges apply to interconnected switched-IP traffic. The commission was required to release an order by midnight Wednesday under a statutory deadline. Commissioners voted 3-0 to deny the forbearance petition, which asked the FCC to rule that the competitive local exchange carrier doesn’t have to pay access charges for VoIP traffic that interconnects with traditional public switched telephone network carriers.
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The FCC agreed with arguments that granting the petition wouldn’t have given FeatureGroup the relief it sought. In filings, opponents said that even if the FCC granted Feature Group forbearance, the commission would have to adopt a new rule to apply reciprocal compensation rules to VoIP traffic (CD Jan 13 p5). Under statutory forbearance rules, the FCC can’t make new rules through a forbearance proceeding.
Granting forbearance would “create a regulatory void and significant uncertainty,” Commissioner Robert McDowell said in a statement. “In the absence of any evidence or economic analysis in the record that would allow us to determine that enforcement of our regulations is unnecessary, I find that the petition fails to meet the statutory criteria required for forbearance under Section 10.”
The FCC said the FeatureGroup petition satisfied none of the statutory forbearance criteria. “Forbearance from section 251(g) would not automatically … mean that section 251(b)(5) would govern traffic that was previously subject to section 251(g),” the FCC said. “If the Commission were to forbear from the rate regulation preserved by section 251(g) and the related rules, there would be no rate regulation governing the exchange of this traffic.”
The FCC will have to consider the VoIP interconnection issue in the spring, when an Embarq forbearance petition comes due. Embarq’s petition, which must be decided by April 11, asks the FCC to rule that access charges do apply to IP-PSTN traffic.