"Significant gaps” exist in the rural call completion record, and there should be a 90-day “moratorium” in the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) application process, the Voice Communication Exchange Committee told the FCC Thursday. The FCC’s plan to use a data collection as a means of discovering further call completion problems will have “no practical utility” in addressing the root causes of the call completion issues, VCXC said in a filing in WC docket 13-39. “An industry wide ‘everyone presumed guilty’ data collection represents an extremely inefficient means of triggering enforcement actions,” VCXC said. “In the unlikely event problems arise with even 1 percent of total calls, 99 percent of the data collection burden represents a waste of resources the PRA approval process exists to prevent.” The FCC “failure to properly prepare” during the 40 months of investigations leading up to its rural call completion report “puts the application at risk and makes any outcome vulnerable to litigation and further delays,” VCXC said. A 90-day moratorium would let the FCC determine whether its PRA application can pass, and the agency might also convene industry meetings to discuss the issue, VCXC founder Daniel Berninger told us. The root cause of the call completion problems is the IP transition itself, Berninger said: “Chaos in the network” combined with “bad guys lurking out there, finding ways to collect money without delivering a service.” The problem is “a symptom of the chaos that ensues when you try to transition a network from TDM to all IP,” he said. Submitting the call completion data collection proposal to the Office of Management and Budget for PRA approval, only to have it be rejected, would be “a bigger setback than if we pause and assess the application before submitting it,” Berninger said. A data collection won’t fix anything, he said; it will just look for more problems. A better solution is for the FCC to “set up a process of anonymous whistleblowers” to find the bad actors, Berninger said.

The FCC plans another inmate calling workshop, it said in a public notice Wednesday. Scheduled for July 9, it will “analyze the impact of the reforms and gather information to inform additional reforms of inmate calling services,” it said (http://bit.ly/1nr1eON). “Topics for the workshop will include state reforms of ICS, the cost characteristics of the provision of ICS in different correctional facilities, the regulation of ancillary charges, and non-traditional communications technologies used in correctional settings.” The agency revamped its prison calling rules last year, instituting strict limits on per-minute charges for interstate calls. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has stayed much of the prison calling order (CD Jan 14 p3).

Ericsson’s continued insistence that the FCC can designate a Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) without issuing an NPRM “reflects a fundamental disregard for the law,” current LNPA Neustar told the agency in a letter Monday (http://bit.ly/1k395Dx). “No lesser authority than the Supreme Court ... has expressly recognized that the Commission’s exercise of authority under Section 251(e) constitutes rulemaking,” Neustar said. Ericsson owns Telcordia, which is battling with Neustar over the LNPA contract, which is up in 2015. Ericsson is trying to relegate to a “historical footnote” the FCC’s rule barring selection of a telecom network equipment manufacturer and its affiliate, Neustar said. Ericsson’s effort to “wrap a veil of secrecy” around the North American Numbering Council recommendation, and block public participation in the LNPA selection process, “betrays its unwillingness to compete in a fair and open manner,” Neustar said.

Incumbent providers’ continued dominant positions in the market for interconnection services let them delay the IP transition “because competitive IP-based carriers lack the leverage necessary to demand IP interconnection,” Cablevision and Charter Communications told the FCC in a letter posted in docket 12-353 Friday (http://bit.ly/1mOVoIB). They were responding to a USTelecom letter arguing ILECs are no longer dominant providers in the relevant markets. Cablevision and Charter have experienced the problem firsthand as they've tried to negotiate for such agreements “absent legal guidance from the Commission on the applicability of Section 251(c) to IP-to-IP interconnection,” they said of the Communications Act. Despite competitive providers’ gains in some local markets, interconnection agreements typically cover entire states or regions, and no competitive providers have market penetration comparable to ILECs over such large areas, the cable companies said. The FCC should ensure that ILECs carry out their statutory duties under Section 251(c) and provide IP-to-IP interconnection on reasonable terms, they said.

Making all Number Portability Administration Center bid documents publicly available “would be extremely anticompetitive if re-bidding on this contract were to occur in the future,” Telcordia wrote Friday in response to a question from the FCC Wireline Bureau. “Any public release of Telcordia’s confidential and proprietary technical, pricing, and operational information, by or at the direction of the Commission, would be contrary to the Trade Secrets Act,” Telcordia said. Telcordia, an Ericsson subsidiary, is competing for the Local Number Portability Administrator contract, which Neustar has for sure only until its contract expires next year. “Neustar, of course, offers to make its bid public -- it has concluded that its bid was uncompetitive anyway, meaning that public release of bids will only benefit Neustar, while causing maximum harm to Telcordia. All along, Neustar has been trying to determine how large of an incumbency premium it could seek and still retain the LNPA contract -- and its actions show that it believes its bid miscalculated the premium it could demand and was therefore too high. It would destroy the competitive process if Neustar were now given Telcordia’s proprietary pricing, and an opportunity to revamp its bid using that trade secret information."

Verizon lost a dispute about facilities charges in a telephone interconnection agreement before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday, as the court vacated a lower court ruling in Verizon’s favor (http://1.usa.gov/1sOVxNY). But several other lower court findings in favor of Verizon were affirmed. Soon after agreeing to an interconnection agreement, CoreTel and Verizon had found themselves in a dispute on the rates CoreTel was required to pay for interconnection entrance facilities, the court said. CoreTel was entitled to summary judgment in its favor on both its and Verizon’s claims for declaratory relief relating to Verizon’s facilities charges, the 4th Circuit said. But the 4th Circuit affirmed the lower court grant of summary judgment in Verizon’s favor on CoreTel’s “reciprocal compensation” claims. The 4th Circuit also upheld a lower court Verizon victory on its switched-access claims. The opinion was written by Judge Allyson Duncan.

The American Library Association met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other agency staff May 5, to propose the FCC invest a “significant portion” of funding to focus on improving current process in the E-rate program, and incentivizing applicants to take advantage of capacity-building measures already in place, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/1iJkgvJ). Libraries in many communities are the only on-ramp to the Internet for those without such access, ALA said.

Comptel met with FCC Wireline Bureau officials Thursday to discuss the FCC timeline for action on the IP transition, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 13-5 (http://bit.ly/1mnwhfV). The conversation focused on three issues Comptel wants the commission to address this year: Adopting rules to prevent the exclusionary impact of special access term and volume discount agreements; confirming IP interconnection rights for the exchange of voice traffic; and revisiting the existing copper retirement rules. Existing copper retirement rules are insufficient to protect the public interest, because they provide only for notification that the copper loop will no longer be available for competitive services, but don’t ensure an alternative form of access to last-mile facilities, said Comptel. “This creates substantial harm, particularly to small and medium size businesses that rely on competitors to provide the affordable broadband services they need to run and grow their business."

The FCC should investigate reports that carriers are forcing customers from traditional copper phone service, said a petition from Public Knowledge, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and eight other organizations filed with the commission Monday. “Complaints often state that customers are being involuntarily moved to fiber or IP-based service (or some combination thereof), even if those new technologies fail to serve all of the user’s needs or will be more expensive. Denying basic phone service to people who have relied on the network for decades violates the network compact that has successfully guided our communications policy for one hundred years.” A commission investigation is necessary to ensure the “continued vitality of the fundamental values that underlie our network, including universal service,” the petition said. The FCC has said in approving the IP trials it wants to preserve longtime principles for customers in the IP transition, “but now, the Commission is at risk of losing control of the network transition by allowing carriers to push their customers off of the traditional networks -- in violation of their obligations as telecommunications carriers -- simply to cut costs or push customers into higher cost services or packages, generating more revenue for the carrier,” the groups said in the filing. Others signing the petition include groups like the Office of the People’s Counsel-District of Columbia, that filed petitions with local PUCs alleging customers are being pushed from copper service against their will or knowledge (CD March 27 p10).

No neutrality rule bars Telcordia from serving as Local Number Portability Administrator, the Ericsson affiliate told the FCC in a letter Friday (http://bit.ly/1mSt6uX). Neustar had argued (CD May 8 p11) that the commission must select the next LNPA by notice-and-comment rulemaking because Telcordia is “barred by rule” from being selected. “These arguments are yet another transparent attempt to delay and derail the selection of the LNPA in order to force an extension of Neustar’s existing $500 million per year contract and to disregard the recommendations” of the North American Numbering Council and North American Portability Management LLC, Telcordia said. Neustar’s argument is “a plain misreading” of the relevant statute, that “attempts to elevate form over substance” -- in the process, “fundamentally” misunderstanding “the difference between a rule and an adjudication,” Telcordia said. “Ericsson continues to show impatience with a process that is not over, and in which the assessment of whether a potential vendor meets the neutrality requirement has only just begun,” a Neustar spokesman said. “Ericsson cannot choose the rules that it would like to follow and ignore the rules that are inconvenient. Our expectation is that the FCC, far from being rushed by Ericsson, will want to address the serious issues we have raised."