Verizon Wireless urged the FCC to grant a paging company’s petiti...

not toll, calls to wireless numbers rated in extended local dialing areas. Verizon Wireless argued commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) providers can interconnect indirectly and maintain different rating and routing points. It commented on a petition by ASAP Paging, which sought preemption of an Oct. Tex. PUC order. That order allowed CenturyTel to require end users in the San Marcos rate center to dial 1-plus and pay retail toll charges when they call ASAP subscribers with numbers rated in 3 local exchanges -- even though all 3 exchanges are part of a mandatory Extended Local Calling Service (ELCS) plan. Verizon Wireless said the key issue was whether wireline carriers such as CenturyTel can require 1-plus dialing to CMRS numbers “rated in exchanges that are local for landline calls, particularly when, as in this case, the CMRS provider has opted not to interconnect directly to those exchanges.” Verizon Wireless asked the FCC to clarify that: (1) LECs can’t require landline customers to dial extra digits or incur toll or long distance charges when they call mobile numbers rated in otherwise local exchanges. (2) The rate center assignment of the calling and called parties -- not the geographic location of the wireless customer or mobile switch -- determines the rating of land-to-mobile calls. (3) CMRS providers aren’t required to establish direct connections to establish local calling and can designate different rating and routing points. In carrying out Telecom Act provisions on dialing parity, Verizon Wireless said, the FCC required LECs to permit telephone exchange service customers within a local calling area to dial the same number of digits to make a local call, “notwithstanding the identity of the calling or the called party’s local telephone service provider.”