WASHINGTON-A wireless-industry proposal that would allow carriers to institute calling party pays is stalled at the Federal Communications Commission due to a lack of consensus among industry players, said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
“[The industry] hasn’t done the necessary job to speak with one voice,” Wheeler said.
Calling party pays is similar to long-distance toll calling where the person placing the call to a wireless subscriber pays for the call. CPP is the norm in Europe, while North American carriers traditionally have required subscribers to pay all charges related to mobile phone usage. CTIA earlier this year petitioned the FCC to allow for nationwide CPP, claiming it would increase competition and wireless phone use. There are several trial programs today.
There are no laws or regulations prohibiting CPP, yet there are no rules promoting the service.
For its part, the Personal Communications Industry Association remains interested in the calling-party-pays proposal, said Mary McDermott, PCIA senior vice president and chief of staff government relations.
However, the industry must first come up with a consensus proposal on a “sensible, effective [and] uniform notification plan,” McDermott said. This proposal is necessary so mobile phones users who travel nationwide are not confused by varying messages and/or tones, she said.
While Wheeler said the FCC needs to declare definitively that commercial mobile radio services are the jurisdiction of the federal government and cannot be subject to state control, McDermott said the FCC is reluctant to pre-empt the states.
“We think it is too early” to ask the FCC to pre-empt the states until the industry resolves the outstanding issues on CPP, said McDermott.
Three pieces of the calling-party-pays puzzle must be fixed before the program will be effective, Wheeler said: CMRS jurisdiction, nationwide notification and billing.
Billing is a sticky problem because CPP will work only if the wireless carrier receives payment from the wireline carrier in question. Many of the wireline carriers have questioned whether this can or should work. Many of these same wireline carriers have companion wireless carriers. This could be contributing to the conflict within the industry as to how much support CPP should be receiving.
Indeed, some of the Bell operating companies-and their wireless subsidiaries-are in favor of and actively have supported CPP, while other BOCs have given CPP a lukewarm reception. This split has led some wireless representatives to question privately why CTIA has pushed this issue so strongly.
Another industry-wide debate on CPP is whether it is necessary in today’s climate of nationwide calling plans.
