NPAC Support, Verizon Petition, Debated in Filings at FCC
Verizon and Verizon Wireless told the FCC a declaratory order remains the appropriate mechanism for addressing their concerns that the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) should be paid by the carriers seeking ports, not the carrier handing off numbers. Competitive carriers and cable operators disagreed. On June 1, the Wireline Bureau sought comment on Verizon’s May 20 petition and replies were due Monday (http://xrl.us/bk9qqm).
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Under the current system, companies like Verizon “largely foot the bill” for the costs of maintaining the NPAC, Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bk9qpp). Verizon said it supports a rulemaking to examine sharing of all inter-provider porting and pooling costs, but the FCC has the evidence it needs now to act on its May 20 petition asking that NPAC costs unrelated to number portability or pooling be borne directly by the cost-causing providers. “NPAC database costs have experienced explosive growth over the past five years,” Verizon said. “These costs are driven mainly by the frequent use of the NPAC databases by certain service providers to accomplish tasks unrelated to number portability or pooling, such as grooming their own networks and offering new services to customers. The costs of these intra-provider ports and modify transactions are not borne by those providers that request and directly benefit from them."
XO Communications countered that the changes sought by Verizon are not competitively neutral as Verizon maintains (http://xrl.us/bk9qpx). The changes sought by Verizon “place a disproportionate burden on competitive, rather than incumbent, providers for funding the NPAC database costs simply because a larger percentage of competitive local exchange carriers’ numbering resources are ported and pooled numbers,” XO said. “Although Verizon has attempted to characterize certain NPAC transactions as solely benefiting individual providers, there should be no dispute that consumers and the industry as a whole benefit from maintaining accurate information in the NPAC regional databases."
Verizon’s petition ignores a market reality, Comcast said (http://xrl.us/bk9r72). “Because incumbent LECs obtained most of their telephone numbers before the Commission began implementing number conservation requirements, they are able to use the Local Exchange Routing Guide much more frequently to complete porting tasks that competitive LECs can only accomplish through use of the Number Portability Administration Center database.” Verizon’s proposed change “would shift an unreasonable and disproportionate share of number portability administrative costs to competitive LECs due to historical factors outside their control while simultaneously reducing the remaining costs that are recovered from incumbent LECs.” Tw telecom said, “the ruling Verizon seeks cannot be granted in a declaratory ruling. Verizon seeks a material change to federal law that can only be granted by the Commission as the result of a notice of proposed rulemaking."
"Numerous key policy matters await the FCC’s deliberation, which are significantly more important and overdue for decision-making than is the review of the way in which NPAC costs are recovered,” said the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel (http://xrl.us/bk9r5f).