CenturyLink tried to distance itself from services offered by MeetingOne. ...
CenturyLink tried to distance itself from services offered by MeetingOne. MeetingOne has asked the FCC to review a Wireline Bureau order that found MeetingOne’s audio bridging is a telecommunications service that ought to be subject to Universal Service Fund reporting…
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and contribution rules. “CenturyLink takes no position here as to whether the Bureau’s conclusions regarding MeetingOne’s service are correct,” the company said. But CenturyLink takes issue with MeetingOne’s claim that MeetingOne’s offering is less similar to a telecom service than that offered by Qwest’s IPTF and IPLD services, which support MeetingOne’s audio bridges, CenturyLink said in comments published at docket 06-122 (http://xrl.us/bmon8c). MeetingOne made its claims “without any legal analysis or supporting authority” and its statements are not only “incorrect” but also “irrelevant,” CenturyLink said. “The Commission therefore is precluded from going beyond the Bureau’s findings to consider contribution obligations pertaining to Qwest’s services,” CenturyLink said. The FCC could help things out if it weighed contribution questions “for complex IP technologies ... prospectively” and in broader, rulemaking proceedings rather than in a “piecemeal manner,” CenturyLink added. “Given the checkerboard of determinations regarding the regulatory treatment of IP-enabled services, the USF contribution obligations of new and complex IP-based services seldom are clear,” CenturyLink said. CenturyLink owns the former Qwest operation.