[VoiceOps] FCC issues Declaratory Ruling on Call Termination

[Mark R. Lindsey]

As I read it, the FCC doesn't require anyone to build infinite capacity into an area. The FCC just said that you can't intentionally degrade or block the call based on the called destination if you have capacity available. 

Most carriers don't have a trunk group or route to rural, expensive areas and separate trunk groups to cheaper metro areas. They just have TDM or SIP trunks to the LD termination carriers that can support any type of call. The FCC is saying that if you take a setup like that and intentionally make some of the calls work poorly or fail more often than other calls, then YOU PERSONALLY might have to pay $150k.

That implies (over the long term) that you must have a way to pass on your costs to your customer so that you can actually afford to terminate the calls that they send you, and even profit from doing so.

Who ever said it was reasonable to charge a single, competitive, fixed price rate per minute for all Domestic US termination? But that's exactly what everyone is expecting: $0.02/minute no matter where you call in the US.

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice.

-- Mark R Lindsey mark at ecg.co +1-229-316-0013  http://ecg.co/lindsey




On Feb 7, 2012, at 20:20 , Scott Berkman wrote:

> +1 on Carlos’ note about the free services that are the underlying cause for this issue.  They put the services in these locations on purpose knowing full well that the low costs they were paying for termination meant higher costs on the other side.  As those services grew, there were obvious consequences to the capacity the IXC’s had into those areas.
>  
> As I was once told by someone at a major carrier that may or may not have been mentioned by name in the OP, at some point when the call volumes to a certain area are exponentially larger than what they should be based on the actual population or even population growth expectations, it doesn’t make sense to build out the needed capacity to serve that growing volume of calls if there are no paying end users to help cover the costs.
>  
> I find it “interesting” that not only did the FCC ignore the underlying cause of these issues in the ruling, but it seems they have basically now given the free conference and similar service providers the go ahead to keep doing what they are doing without consequence, knowing the FCC has their back.
>  
> As far as GV, they are not a “carrier” in the traditional sense because they don’t operate as a CLEC or IXC in any way that I have seen yet.  For inbound, all their TNs (at least the ones I have checked) are ported to either Level 3 orBandwidth.com, which basically just makes them a big VoIP customer of the big carriers.  Outbound is a little harder to trace, but in all likelihood they mainly use the same carriers, perhaps some others as well, so for their customers (or is it users for a free service?) to stop having issues the IXC’s they use will have to upgrade their trunking capacities into the affected “rural” areas.
>  
>   -Scott
>  
> From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Carlos Alvarez
> Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 11:58 AM
> To: VoiceOps at voiceops.org
> Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] FCC issues Declaratory Ruling on Call Termination
>  
> I'm optimistic about this, though not knowledgeable enough to know the full legal implications.  But it does seem like GV/L3/others will be forced to change their ways.  Though maybe not GV, are they even considered a "carrier?"
>  
> I wonder what will happen to those "free" fax and conference call providers who caused the problem to start with?  Can the locals refuse service to them?  Will the FCC look at their practices independently?
>  
> 
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 9:13 PM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote:
> The FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling today in regards to call termination.  The ruling prevents originating carriers from passing the buck to LCR, puts responsibility on them if they are aware of degraded service, and attaches some stiff fines.
> 
> It would seem to me that this would prevent Google Voice and others, such as Level3, from not terminating to certain (more expensive) NPA/NXXes.
> 
> Frank
> 
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>  
> --
> Carlos Alvarez
> TelEvolve
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