The Intercarrier Compensation Forum (ICF) filed a 198-page reform...
The Intercarrier Compensation Forum (ICF) filed a 198-page reform proposal with the FCC on Tues. that promised “enormous public interest benefits” by unifying overlapping industry compensation mechanisms, including those used for access charges, reciprocal compensation and settlements. The cross-industry…
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ICF said the plan is “the best means of resolving the interrelated intercarrier compensation and universal service funding issues” before the FCC. The ICF said the plan will replace “the current, obsolete and broken systems of intercarrier charges with a new, comprehensive and unified system.” The ICF -- composed of AT&T, Global Crossing, General Communications, Ia. Telecom, Level3, MCI, SBC, Sprint and Valor Telecom -- briefed the FCC on Aug. 13 with an outline of the plan, but this is the FCC’s first comprehensive look at it. The ICF is one of several groups that have presented intercarrier compensation proposals to the FCC. Unlike the ICF, the other groups generally represent individual industry segments -- one is made up of CLECs, 2 others represent rural carriers. Most of the other groups were founded by carriers that left the ICF over disagreements about the compromises the ICF required in order to get agreement from competing industry segments. The ICF said its plan is a good solution politically because it exempts low-income consumers from the subscriber line charge and safeguards for rural carriers. It’s also “the most legally sustainable solution” because it “does not affect state regulatory jurisdiction over intrastate end user rates,” the ICF said.