WASHINGTON-Telecommunications carriers, especially small rural wireless carriers, are fighting against a proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to charge for telephone numbers.
“There exists no congressional mandate to charge for numbering resources. A market-based number allocation system is not competitively neutral, as is suggested by the FCC. Rather it is inherently anti-competitive because it gives large wireless carriers with deep pockets a competitive advantage over smaller wireless carriers that have limited financial resources. … The FCC has not adequately assessed the economic impact of such a numbering scheme on small carriers. Such a requirement would have a significant negative economic effect on small, independently owned wireless carriers that are generally in direct competition with large wireless companies. … The FCC already had rejected a fee-based system for vanity toll-free numbers on the basis that it was anti-competitive because small carriers would be ‘unable to compete with the greater resources of large businesses,’ ” said the Rural Cellular Association.
FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth has long championed the idea that telephone numbers-like spectrum-should be distributed using market forces.
It is this comparison to spectrum that gave telecommunications carrier trade associations the ammunition they needed to show that the FCC does not have the statutory authority to charge for numbers.
“The most comparable authority that the commission currently has is its authority to auction spectrum licenses through competitive bidding. Given that the commission needed authorization from Congress to distribute spectrum licenses through competitive bidding rather than by lottery or comparative hearing, the commission could not justify a similar pricing mechanism for numbering resources based solely on its plenary jurisdiction pursuant to” the Telecommunications Act of 1996, said the United States Telecom Association.
“The results of this type of pricing system would be analogous to the problems the commission faces today concerning small carriers’ inability to compete with large carriers in the FCC’s spectrum auctions,” said the National Telephone Cooperative Association.
The Furchtgott-Roth proposal shows his bent as an economist but is interesting because there does not appear to be any legal basis for it, a point made repeatedly by many entities commenting in the proceeding. Furchtgott-Roth has marked his FCC career with a constant call for the regulatory agency to “follow the law.”
Furchtgott-Roth’s office declined to respond on the comments submitted. He recently announced he would not seek re-nomination to the commission.
This is at least the second time the FCC has asked the telecommunications industry to comment on whether there should be a charge for telephone numbers.
