Verizon Wireless urged the FCC this week to ‘remove substantial u...

ruling that “wireless termination tariffs” violate FCC rules. Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Western Wireless had asked the agency to “reaffirm” that wireless termination tariffs weren’t the proper tool for crafting reciprocal compensation arrangements for the transport and termination of traffic. Wireless providers typically interconnect indirectly with a rural ILEC by exchanging traffic via an intermediate carrier. Companies that handle such indirect interconnections often hand off traffic under bill & keep arrangements, not interconnection pacts, for wireless-to-landline traffic. The issue received attention last year when some rural LECs filed state tariffs to collect reciprocal compensation for certain wireless traffic. Verizon Wireless said Secs. 252 and 332 of the Communications Act required LEC-Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) interconnection to be covered by negotiated or arbitrated interconnection agreements, not “unilateral rates.” FCC rules stipulate that in cases where there’s no interconnection agreement, LECs and CMRS operators must compensate each other at “reasonable” rates. “Because of widespread confusion in the marketplace, it may be necessary for the Commission to establish the range of ‘reasonable rates’ through proxy rates, much as it originally did in the first local competition order, until a more permanent solution can be reached in this docket,” Verizon Wireless said. It urged the Commission to clarify a previous decision that traffic to or from LECs and CMRS carriers that originated and terminated in the same major trading area was local and subject to reciprocal compensation rules unless it was carried by an IXC, in which case it would be subject to interstate and intrastate access charges. In related areas, Verizon Wireless said an FCC ruling on a US LEC petition had “ironically made it more difficult for CMRS carriers to negotiate access charge agreements with IXCs, despite the decision’s holding that CMRS carriers may assess terminating access charges pursuant to such agreements.” US LEC had sought a ruling that LECs were entitled to recover access charges from IXCs for providing access service on interexchange calls originating from or terminating on wireless networks.