WASHINGTON-The telecommunications industry is questioning whether the nearly half-million dollars it has paid to a nonprofit consultant to the government on numbering issues is kosher.
The Federal Communications Commission is using consulting agency Mitre Corp. to assist it with number pooling issues. To date, Mitre has received about $403,000 for consulting on who should administer the nation’s telephone numbers.
At issue is whether the FCC should use money carriers are paying for number-pooling administration on consultant fees.
Telecom carriers pay money to North American Billing and Collection Inc. using a formula based on their revenues. NBANC collects money from carriers to pay for numbering administration activities.
“There is concern in the telecom industry that the FCC is using NBANC as a blank check,” said Michael F. Altschul, senior vice president for policy and administration, and general counsel for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
The FCC signed a contract with Mitre on Sept. 15, according to a letter signed by Yog R. Varma, deputy bureau chief of the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau.
The FCC believes it was able to contract with Mitre because of a rule that allows federal agencies to contract for services when there is an urgent need. “Running out of numbers is an urgent need,” said Michael Balmoris, spokesman for the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau.
Until recently, money collected by NBANC was paid exclusively to NeuStar Inc. as the North American Numbering Plan Administrator, but the FCC changed the rules in December to allow payments to be made to other entities.
Mark Oakey of the FCC’s Office of the Managing Director, which signed the contract with Mitre, said the FCC’s Office of General Counsel authorized NBANC to make payments to Mitre using number- pooling administration funds.
NBANC does not determine policy, said Anne La Lena of WorldCom Inc., who chairs the NBANC board of directors. “NBANC is really a bean counter. We add it up. We collect it and we pay it out.”
The rule change that apparently authorized the payments to Mitre was adopted by the agency on Dec. 7, but not released until Dec. 29. It did not go into effect until sometime this year since FCC rules are not effective until 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
The rule change is also raising eyebrows because it was not in the proposed rules so the industry did not have a chance to comment on it.
NBANC was not made aware of the change by the FCC or that a letter had been signed that would lead NBANC to make payments to Mitre.
“FCC staff did not speak with NBANC prior to contracting with Mitre. We did not find out before the process began. We had limited advance notice before the billing began,” said La Lena.
The payments were authorized in separate letters to NBANC beginning in December. Last week the vice president and general counsel for NBANC’s parent organization, the National Exchange Carrier Association, said the payments were legitimate because of the FCC’s Dec. 7 rule change.
Two FCC spokespeople and Oakey said they were unaware of the December rule change. They also contend the industry was aware of the contract because it was discussed at meetings of the North American Numbering Council.
The issue is expected to be discussed at this Wednesday’s NBANC board of directors meeting and will perhaps come up at the NANC meeting on Tuesday.
Number pooling allows telephone numbers to be assigned in thousand-blocks rather than the 10,000-block basis established when North America created area codes in 1947. There are 10,000 numbers in each exchange-denoted by the first three numbers of a seven-digit telephone number. Old wireline technology required that a new exchange be assigned for each rate center.
When competition came to the wireline industry-not to mention the proliferation of second lines, fax machines and wireless devices-numbers started running out since wireline competitors were required to get an entire 10,000-number block for each rate center they wanted to serve. When new competitors didn’t sign up customers at the rate they thought they would, this often meant that several thousand numbers in some blocks were left unused.
The FCC has said it hopes to implement nationwide number pooling as soon as a contract can be awarded to handle the technical difficulties associated with the task. The FCC put out a request for proposals for a nationwide number-pooling administrator in December and expects to make a decision by this summer.
In the meantime, NBANC is collecting funds to pay the administrator, but some have questioned whether an FCC consultant on the request for proposals should be paid out of these funds.
