Several telecom groups urged the Senate Commerce Committee leader...
Several telecom groups urged the Senate Commerce Committee leadership to protest Level 3’s petition to the FCC requesting its VoIP service be subject to reciprocal compensation charges instead of switched access charges. The groups said such a ruling by…
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the FCC would “encourage other interexchange carriers to claim that their long distance traffic is IP in order to take advantage of the lower costs Level 3 is seeking.” The groups said the problems Level 3 raised in its petition need to be solved with comprehensive intercarrier compensation reform, which is expected as part of Congress’s review of telecom laws and the universal service fund. “The Level 3 petition purports to exclude rural telephone companies from its application, but it proposed to exclude only some rural carriers, not all rural carriers,” the letter said. “If this exclusion does not survive judicial scrutiny, the effect on rural companies would be especially severe.” Letter signers included the Eastern Rural Telecom Assn., the Independent Telephone & Telecom Alliance, the NTCA, OPASTCO, USTA and the Western Telecom Alliance.