WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission Thursday proposed fining CenturyTel Inc. $100,000 for not routing ported wireless numbers.
“Regardless of the status of a carrier’s obligation to provide number portability, all carriers have the duty to route calls to ported numbers. In other words, carriers must ensure that their call-routing procedures do not result in dropped calls to ported numbers,” said the FCC. “During the relevant period, however, not all of CenturyTel’s switches were LNP-capable. CenturyTel stated that as of Feb. 24, more than two months after the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau launched its investigation, it was not LNP-capable in 20 switches in the state of Washington.”
The FCC said CenturyTel did not route calls from its subscribers to ported wireless numbers, relying instead on the wireless carrier to route the calls.
“The record is undisputed that where CenturyTel did not have LNP-capable switches and had a direct trunk with the porting wireless provider, CenturyTel default routed all local wireless calls to the porting wireless carrier. Unless this wireless carrier performed the database query, the CenturyTel customer’s call was dropped,” said the FCC.
The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association highlighted the fine at a press conference Thursday afternoon to discuss the upcoming May 24 deadline for all carriers in all markets to have the ability to port numbers.
“CenturyTel is a local exchange carrier-a wireline company. They did not have to upgrade their switches to port wireline LNP, but when wireless carriers started porting, the FCC has made clear with today’s proposed fine that CenturyTel and all wireline companies have to do the routing of wireline to wireless by querying a database and having the LEC switch route the call to the appropriate wireless carrier,” said Michael Altschul, CTIA senior vice president and general counsel.
The FCC rejected CenturyTel’s claim that its rules were ambiguous, noting that last year CenturyTel asked for a rule change.
“In support of its position that the FCC’s requirements are ambiguous, CenturyTel relies on its own prior requests for rule changes and third-party statements,” said the commission. “CenturyTel asked the FCC to require a wireless customer’s former wireless service provider to perform the local number portability database query and transmit the call to the new wireless service provider without charge to the LEC. Notably, CenturyTel did not therein contend that the rule was ambiguous. CenturyTel merely asked the commission to change the current rule.”
