WASHINGTON-Paging Network Inc. was expected last week to complete the last of 13 interconnection agreements with Bell Atlantic Corp.
“We are pleased that PageNet and Bell Atlantic have been able to agree on interconnection terms in all of the states in which Bell Atlantic operates,” said David Gamble, vice president for external affairs at PageNet.
The comprehensive deal was completed several weeks ago but separate agreements for each state needed to be formalized and filed with various state public service commissions. PageNet had been negotiating with Bell Atlantic for several months on an interconnection agreement that would call for PageNet to be compensated for terminating Bell Atlantic’s local traffic.
“PageNet is pleased that it was able to reach an accord, through negotiation, and without having to continue to pursue the arbitrations it had filed against Bell Atlantic in its 13 states. The agreement, taken as a whole, represents a reasonable compromise on both parties’ part and, hopefully, will serve as a basis for other agreements PageNet is able to negotiate and/or arbitrate, as the case may be,” Gamble said.
According to the agreement, compensation rates differ for the various states. For example Bell Atlantic will pay $.0062 per minute for New York traffic, $.0057 for the states in the former Nynex territory excluding New York, and $.005 per minute for Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
The agreement is significant because Bell Atlantic recognized a number of things, including that it was obligated to deliver traffic to PageNet, that paging carriers have a significant entitlement to compensation and that PageNet’s existing network is efficiently designed and implemented, said PageNet outside counsel Judith St. Ledger-Roty.
Additionally, Bell Atlantic did not try to attach or impose additional charges on PageNet for facilities, St. Ledger-Roty said.
Bell Atlantic’s participation in the agreement sets it apart from other local exchange carriers that have taken the position paging companies are not entitled to reciprocal compensation. “Bell Atlantic has never taken that view,” said Don Brittingham, director of wireless policy for Bell Atlantic.
Whether this agreement can be used by other paging companies is unclear. The Personal Communications Industry Association believes that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allows other companies to reach similar agreements but Brittingham said that while the PageNet agreement is “not intended to be a special arrangement,” other paging companies would have to accept the same terms as PageNet and supply the same type of cost data that PageNet supplied.
The FCC had been expected to clarify the situation this year after Daniel Phythyon, former chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, told attendees at PCS ’97 that the wireless bureau was working on a notice of proposed rule making. This NPRM apparently has been put on hold until the FCC receives a decision from the Supreme Court on interconnection issues. Oral arguments in this case occurred in October and a decision is expected by next summer.
