The interconnection fight between paging carriers and local exchange carriers is far from over. LECs, wounded by a Federal Communications Commission Common Carrier Bureau letter denying them the right to charge paging carriers interconnection fees, have fired the first shots in the next battle in the ongoing interconnection war.
U S West Communications Inc. and Southwestern Bell Telephone each filed an Application for Review with the FCC in response to the letter. SWB also added a request to stay the order until the matter can be resolved by the full commission.
In a separate tack, BellSouth Corp. filed suit against AirTouch Paging in Georgia for failing to pay $600,000 in interconnection costs it says the paging carrier owes, claiming the FCC clarification letter does not apply.
The letter in question, issued Dec. 30 by Common Carrier Bureau Chief Richard Metzger Jr., stated that LECs may not charge paging carriers for dedicated facilities used to deliver local traffic to paging providers. U S West’s filing urged the commission to reverse that opinion because “the bureau’s conclusions contravene the Communications Act” in that the act’s reciprocal compensation requirement does not apply to one-way paging.
“Paging providers do not transport or terminate LEC-originated traffic … and the act’s reciprocal compensation requirements apply only where-unlike LEC-paging interconnection-there is reciprocal exchange of traffic,” the filing read.
In the filing, U S West also said the costs of creating dedicated facilities for paging carriers are not recovered by the company, despite that claim by paging carriers. He said LECs cannot build such costs into LEC customer rates unless mandated by the state or the FCC. Unless the FCC establishes a cost-recovery framework, any order to implement the FCC’s letter would be a violation of the Just Compensation Clause of the 5th Amendment, the company said.
“By prohibiting LECs from charging these costs to paging providers and failing to establish any other means of recovering the costs, the commission’s rules contained in the letter would accomplish an unconstitutional taking of LEC’s property,” the filing read.
Robert Lynch, vice president, general counsel-external affairs for SBC Communications Inc., the parent company of Southwestern Bell, said the company has filed its own application for review, putting forth essentially the same arguments as U S West. The company additionally requested a stay of the FCC order until such a time that the FCC could direct LECs about how they are to recover these costs, if not from the paging carriers directly.
Jim Crawford, public policy manager for U S West, stressed that it has every intention to follow the order while the application for review is pending, but the company has not yet decided just how to do so.
“We intend to take the letter seriously and are trying to determine how to comply with it,” he said.
The filing read: “U S West intends as a show of good faith to adjust its tariffs to be responsive to its customers’ needs and the commission’s expectations. As an interim measure pending final resolution of issues relating to paging interconnection and in an effort to short-circuit endless controversy during the period preceding negotiated agreements with paging providers, U S West plans to offer paging providers a basic interconnection option at no charge to replace their existing arrangements with U S West or until new ones are reached … U S West is conducting network planning to formulate the most efficient and cost-effective ways to provide such interconnection to paging providers.”
“We don’t want a logjam that prevents paging carriers from doing business,” was Crawford’s summary.
U S West, SWB and GTE Corp. were named in a complaint filed by Metrocall Inc. with the FCC last month for their “continuing violations of FCC interconnection rules.” The LECs continue to charge paging carriers for local transport.
Meanwhile, Rob Hoggarth, senior vice president of paging and narrowband personal communications services for the Personal Communications Industry Association, said the industry is prepared for a prolonged fight.
“We certainly plan to respond to these filings. They were not unexpected,” he said. “This is a long war and many battles are being fought … We plan to address this on a procedural basis and on a legal basis.”
Hoggarth said he expects the paging industry’s view of this matter to prevail, pointing to state commissions in California, Oregon and Minnesota that have upheld paging carriers’ claims when the issue was brought before them.
“When states have the opportunity to review the FCC’s rules, they recognize the right to paging carriers,” Hoggarth said. “Logic and the law are behind us on this, but we are going against deep pockets.”
Interconnection battles also are being waged outside the FCC battleground. BellSouth last week filed a lawsuit against AirTouch Paging in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia seeking about $600,000 it claims AirTouch owes it for the use of facilities since the fall of 1996.
BellSouth claims that the FCC letter does not apply in this case because the charges fall under tariffs approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission, as well as other state regulatory bodies.
“We disagree with BellSouth and don’t believe we owe them anything based on the FCC letter,” said Susan Rosenberg, AirTouch director of corporate communications.
Some LECs, like Bell Atlantic Corp., have stopped charging paging providers for local transport.
