NECA Survey Shows Call Completion Issues Persist
Call failure rates to rural areas are better than they used to be, but still 13 times higher than for calls to lines in non-rural areas, said results of a call completion test done by the National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA, OPASTCO and the Western Telecommunications Alliance. That’s an “alarming and unacceptable level,” they said. Perhaps most striking, they said, was that for nearly a third of rural test lines, completion problems occurred on one out of every five calls. Other persistent problems included poor voice quality and “delayed setup,” where ring-back only began after 15 seconds or more of dead air following dialing. Nomadic VoIP calls -- calls that typically ride on top of a broadband connection -- fared particularly poorly, failing to complete over 28 percent of the time.
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"The data illustrate what rural carriers already know,” said OPASTCO President John Rose. “The rural call completion problem remains largely unabated, and it appears this will remain the case until firm enforcement action is taken against those who perpetuate it by design or negligence.” More than 7,400 test calls were made April 9-13 to 115 rural and non-rural test lines set up in 40 states.
Twelve percent experienced call completion issues, of over 4,000 wireline calls to rural areas made over a standard interexchange carrier. And 15 percent of the 1,100 wireless calls to rural areas experienced issues, and 16 percent of fixed VoIP calls had issues and 52 percent of nomadic VoIP calls had problems. Of the 634 nomadic VoIP calls placed, 180 failed to connect altogether, and 138 had poor voice quality. Nomadic VoIP could be so bad because it uses least-cost routing more often than fixed VoIP providers who have their own facilities, or because of business decisions not to complete calls that have higher termination rates into rural areas, said Robert Gnapp, a director at NECA. Representatives from Vonage and the VON Coalition, which represents major VoIP providers, had no immediate comment.
Economic incentives not to complete calls to rural areas are immense, several rural carriers and industry observers have told us (CD April 16 p3). The FCC released a declaratory order about the problem in February, but call completion will remain a problem until the FCC actively enforces rules already on the books, carriers said. Representatives from the groups doing the test met with members of the Wireline, Public Safety and Enforcement Bureaus Thursday to discuss the results.
Determining what constituted voice quality was “somewhat of a subjective analysis,” but it included calls with echo, delay, low volumes, or calls that cut in and out, Gnapp said. The results also counted calls where only one party could hear the other as poor quality, rather than incomplete. “We tried to be generous,” Gnapp said. “If we were going to err, we were going to err on the side of not overstating our results.” There was “modest improvement” compared to tests last year, the groups said. The incidence of incomplete calls to rural areas was reduced from 16 percent in 2011 to 6.4 percent in 2012. The calls that did complete had worse voice quality. Even if there was improvement, the level and scope of the existing problem is still “far from acceptable,” and could return as soon as companies are no longer “under the spotlight,” Gnapp said.
The study “mirrors what I continue to hear from the rural LECs in South Dakota,” state Public Utilities Commissioner Chris Nelson said. “Call completion is still a major problem waiting for the FCC to take affirmative steps to penalize those who are responsible.” The problem still exists but hasn’t worsened, a state regulatory analyst said. States lack the jurisdiction to address the issue, she said: “Until the FCC steps in, no one is going to do anything."
"The rural call completion problem continues to be a serious concern and is the focus of ongoing investigations,” an FCC spokesman said. “We look forward to reviewing the results of the NECA study.” The FCC’s Call Completion Task Force has asked rural providers experiencing call completion problems for information to assist its investigations, and has started a new website (http://xrl.us/bm8fke) directing affected consumers on how to file complaints with the commission, the spokesman said.