IP-PSTN Access Fight Not Over, Says FeatureGroup CEO
The FCC’s denial last week of a forbearance petition by FeatureGroup IP “is not the end of the story,” CEO Lowell Feldman said Friday. FeatureGroup, a competitive local exchange carrier serving VoIP providers, still wants a ruling that access charges don’t apply to Internet-based traffic which interconnects with public switched telephone network carriers. But a reconsideration petition isn’t necessarily the company’s next move, Feldman told us.
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FeatureGroup is still studying the FCC order but has already found “a lot of real obvious errors,” Feldman said. The FCC said it denied the company’s petition because granting it wouldn’t give FeatureGroup the relief it sought (CD Jan 22 p4). The company will probably have to file a lawsuit against the FCC, Feldman said, but the CLEC would prefer to resolve the matter in open commission hearings, he said. With new blood coming into the FCC, Feldman said, he hopes the commission will become more receptive to hearing his company’s case and working out a solution, he said.
For seven years, FeatureGroup has been victim to “clear antitrust violations” by big incumbent phone companies, Feldman said. For example, AT&T’s Texas division told Feldman that his company owes it $7.5 million for access, the CEO said in a recent filing to the FCC. But FeatureGroup is sending AT&T only Internet traffic from VoIP clients, and FCC rules say access charges don’t apply to enhanced services, he said. The bills have stopped Feldman from carrying out his business plan and expanding his company, he said.
An AT&T spokesman said his company’s dispute with FeatureGroup wasn’t relevant to the forbearance petition. AT&T seeks money from FeatureGroup not because of any FCC rule, but because of the companies’ interconnection agreement, AT&T said in a filing last year to the FCC. That aside, commission precedent says access charges apply when a wholesale provider like FeatureGroup exchanges IP traffic with the PSTN, AT&T said. AT&T acknowledged that the IP-PSTN interconnection question is contentious but said the FCC should deal with it in a comprehensive overhaul of intercarrier compensation.
Feldman doesn’t expect the FCC to resolve the IP-PSTN question April 11, the commission’s deadline to decide a similar forbearance petition by Embarq, the CEO said. Embarq, a mid-size incumbent, wants the FCC to rule that access charges do apply to IP-PSTN connections. The commission has sent signals that it will deny relief and once more avoid making a policy decision, Feldman said. FeatureGroup opposes Embarq’s petition but would prefer an unfavorable decision to continuing regulatory uncertainty, he said.