FCC URGED TO ADDRESS INFLEXION BID IN BROADER VoIP PROCEEDING
Inflexion’s petition on applying access charges to its VoIP services should be considered in the FCC’s recently announced VoIP rulemaking on IP-enabled services, parties agreed in comments filed with the FCC Wed. They said in that proceeding, the Commission specifically asked for comments on, among other things, the extent to which access charges should apply to VoIP or other IP-enabled services and on whether providers that aren’t interexchange carriers must pay for use of LEC switching facilities.
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Inflexion has asked the Commission to rule that its ExtendIP VoIP service provided to underserved markets is exempt from access charges and may lawfully be provided over end user local services. Inflexion said it believed it needed such an exemption to aid its investment in developing services. Specifically, it said that paying access charges would prevent it from reaching its goal of providing phone service to 99.9% of the American population.
In a joint comment, the Independent Telephone & Telecom Alliance (ITTA), the National Exchange Carrier Assn. (NECA), the Organization for the Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecom Companies (OPASTCO) and the USTA urged the FCC to dismiss the Inflexion petition. They said the Commission should confirm that any call touching the public switched telephone network (PSTN) must be subject to access charges.
Inflexion presented “no evidence whatsoever” that the service it provides “uses the local exchange network any differently than other telecommunications services” using PSTN, the associations said. They said the company’s use of IP technology did “not reduce ILECs’ cost of terminating a phone call… To the extent calls from Inflexion end user customers touch the PSTN, most likely by having their calls terminated on a local exchange carrier network, Inflexion must pay adequate access compensation.”
AT&T supported the petition, but said there was “no lawful basis on which the Commission could reach disparate results on AT&T’s and Inflexion’s petitions.” It said both petitions sought to confirm that VoIP services should be exempt from access charges. “Any adverse decision on AT&T’s petition must extend equally to Inflexion,” it said: “There is no lawful basis for the Commission to make distinctions between carriers that are providing phone-to-phone IP telephony services.” AT&T said Inflexion’s providing services to underserved areas was “not a distinguishing fact because there is no Commission policy that one can avoid access charges in underserved areas… If AT&T must pay access charges on its phone-to-phone IP telephony calls, then so must Inflexion.”
Many agreed Inflexion arguments on reaching peripheral markets didn’t justify granting the petition. ITTA, NECA, OPASTCO and USTA and Verizon said the Lifeline program, which lets low-income consumers receive telecom services at reduced rates, and the linkup program, which provides a discount on service installation, exist to help low-income consumers receive telecom services. “This component of the universal service fund has been implemented by the FCC to address the concerns stated by Inflexion,” the associations said. Verizon agreed: “Inflexion fails to explain why the Commission should disregard its current universal service programs, or why Inflexion’s ExtendIP service is better suited than existing programs for increasing universal service.”
Many also said Inflexion’s claim that access charges were counter to universal service was misguided. “By exempting ExtendIP from access charges, the Commission would… create regulation induced incentives to substitute one technology for another” hurting “the very same underserved customers Inflexion claims it wishes to serve,” the associations said. Bell South said the Inflexion’s attempt to “wrap itself in a ‘universal service shroud'” didn’t legitimize the requested relief. It said the petition ran directly counter to the universal service support requirements of the Sec. 254 of the Communications Act to make the support explicit: “Exemption from access charges, as Inflexion suggests, results in an implicit subsidy for Inflexion’s service.”
Bells agreed the petition didn’t provide enough information or any legal basis for the FCC to grant the relief sought. They urged the Commission to deny the petition and clarify that its access charge rules apply to interexchange traffic that originates or terminates on the public switched telephone network. Calling the petition “short on law, but long on buzzwords,” BellSouth said exempting Inflexion but not other carriers providing similar service from access charge applications would “force other carriers to subsidize petitioner’s local POTS operations.” Qwest said details on whether Inflexion fell within the FCC’s traditional definition of telecom services; how the service used the IP and Time Division Multiplex (TDM); and how it planned to connect with its end users were “necessary before parties can express an informed vies as to Inflexion’s petition.”