WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission denied a waiver request forwarded last December by AirTouch Communications Inc. that would have stayed any per-call pay-phone compensation until pay-phone service providers are able to provide pay-phone-specific coding digits to facilitate blocking.
In an order released March 9, the commission clarified a number of pay-phone issues revolving around automatic numbering identification methodology and tariffs. In addition, it reiterated that local exchange carriers and interexchange carriers that were able to institute pay-phone-specific coding digits had to complete that process by March 9, and others could only petition for more time on a limited basis.
Long-distance carriers already have added a surcharge to interstate 800-number access from pay phones last spring. AT&T added 35 cents and MCI added 30 cents.
“We are disappointed. We thought the waiver was supported by public interest,” said AirTouch spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg. “We and our customers now are forced to receive calls that we don’t want to receive.” While no final decision has been made by AirTouch on how to proceed, Rosenberg said the carrier was “considering its options,” and that an appeal-perhaps in the form of a petition for reconsideration-could be filed.
AirTouch had wanted to suspend its pay-phone remuneration from Oct. 7 until such a time as it received blocking digits from PSPs. In the order, the FCC cited the company as saying “it will suffer substantial harm if it must pay compensation on a per-call basis without the ability to block calls selectively, because PSPs will have no incentive to negotiate rates, and AirTouch’s liability will be unlimited for calls from pay phones.”
In denying AirTouch’s request, the FCC said, “AirTouch argues that relieving the LECs and PSPs of the obligation to provide pay-phone-specific coding digits while requiring payers to continue payment obligations undermines the market-based approach used to establish the per-call default compensation rate … AirTouch argues that it could be obligated to pay as much as $1 million in compensation for calls it is unable to block because the calls do not provide pay-phone-specific coding digits.” AirTouch also had pointed out that-unlike PageNet and Metrocall that are not planning to block calls to pagers from pay phones-it was trying to save its customers money by such blocking, and currently it only can block 60 percent of 800-number calls made from pay phones.
The commission also pointed out that carriers have known since 1996 that PSPs had to be compensated for “each and every call” made from pay phones, and that the default rate eventually would reach 28 cents per call. “Per-call compensation to PSPs is a cost of providing service that IXCs can pass on to their own customers, just as they pass on other costs,” it wrote.
