Proposed Call Completion Rules Try to ‘Get to the Bottom’ of Complex Problem

"There is ample evidence that rural call completion problems are widespread and serious,” the commission wrote (http://xrl.us/boffxb). The commission plans to impose data collection and reporting requirements on facilities-based originating long-distance voice service providers. That includes LECs, interexchange carriers, commercial mobile radio service providers, and interconnected VoIP providers. The commission seeks comment on whether the proposed rules should apply to other categories of providers, such as one-way VoIP. It also seeks data that might offer a “reasonable” explanation of why call answer rates differ between rural and nonrural areas.

Providers would have to measure the call answer rate for each rural operating company number to which at least 100 calls were attempted in a calendar month, as well as the overall call answer rate for nonrural call attempts. “We believe that it is necessary to measure performance at the individual rural telephone company level,” the commission said, “to ensure that poor performance to any individual rural telephone company is not masked, as it otherwise would be by averaging together calls to all rural telephone companies or averaging call data for rural and nonrural areas."

In addition to calling party number, called party number, and date and time, long-distance providers would have to record: whether the call attempt was handed off to an intermediate provider; whether the call attempt was going to a rural carrier; whether the call attempt was interstate; and whether the call attempt was answered. Providers would have to retain records for the past six months.

"The basic ability of all Americans to reliably receive phone calls -- a bedrock of America’s communication policy -- has come into doubt,” Genachowski said in a statement (http://xrl.us/boffwn). “Although, as we've come to learn, the causes of rural call failures can be complex and the responsible parties difficult to trace, one thing is clear: This has got to stop,” he said. “We have no illusions -- the proposals in today’s item may impose meaningful new burdens on some carriers. But we must get to the bottom of this issue."

The FCC seeks data on several “source-termination categories” of long-distance call traffic: “originating provider to rural telephone company (including rural CLEC), originating provider to nonrural LEC (including nonrural CLEC), first facilities-based provider to rural telephone company (including rural CLEC), and first facilities-based provider to nonrural LEC (including nonrural CLEC).” The commission plans to use the “call answer rate” as the “basic measure of call completion performance,” it said.

Only providers with more than 100,000 retail long-distance subscribers would be required to keep logs on call completion, “in order to lessen the burden of compliance” on smaller companies, the commission said. Two safe harbors would further let providers “avoid or reduce their obligations": The first would relieve from all retention and reporting obligations those providers that annually certify that they restrict directly connected intermediate providers to no more than one additional intermediate provider before the call reaches the terminating provider. The second safe harbor would apply to providers that certify annually that, for each of the past 12 months, the average answer rate to rural carriers was “no more than 2 percent less” than the average for calls to nonrural carriers in the same month. Another requirement would be that “the call answer rates for 95 percent of those rural carriers to which the provider attempted more than 100 calls were no more than 3 percent below the average rural call answer rate.” Providers that met the requirements would be free of the reporting obligations, and face reduced data retention obligations.

NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said she was “encouraged” by the proposal, and hoped it would be “paired with stricter enforcement.” Western Telecommunications Alliance Executive Vice President Kelly Worthington said she hopes the commission considers the findings from the NPRM on an expedited basis. WTA wants an order soon, “before this problem gets any worse,” she said. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said call completion issues have been a “particular problem” for small businesses in his state. “I have been urging the FCC to take action to stop these problems for some time now, including asking it to collect information from providers that might help it enforce its existing rules. The proposal put forth today is encouraging, but I will continue to talk to the FCC to ensure that it has the tools and information it needs to bring an end to this problem once and for all."

Call quality standards might be in the FCC’s future if improvements in call answer rates and signaling integrity “do not result in concomitant improvements in call communications quality,” the notice warned. “While we do not propose call communications quality standards at this time, we will continue to monitor the problem, and we may revisit the issue in the future."

The commission also seeks comment on a proposed rule prohibiting phantom ringback tones -- audible ringing sounds that the caller hears before the calls goes through. “Consumer confusion abounds when the calling party believes the called party’s phone is ringing, as indicated by the fact that the calling party hears the ring numerous times, but the call is never retrieved by a person, voicemail, or answering machine,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in a statement (http://xrl.us/boff2g). “This premature ringing is contrary to the industry practice that the audible ringing only occurs when the called party’s line is available, and the called party’s phone is also ringing."

The NPRM contemplates a sunset provision, with the proposed rules potentially expiring at the end of the intercarrier compensation reform transition period. That might make sense, the commission said, as such reform “should eliminate the primary incentives for cost-saving practices that appear to be undermining the reliability of rural telephone service.” But that sunset period is too long for FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. “Although the Notice proposes to sunset the data collection about eight years from now, I hope we can do so much sooner,” he said in a statement (http://xrl.us/boff3w). “Rural call completion should not be a live issue eight years from now. We must resolve it much, much sooner.”