WASHINGTON-Rural local exchange carrier CenturyTel Inc. has agreed to pay the Federal Communications Commission $100,000 and set up procedures and systems to properly route ported wireless numbers, according to an agreement between the carrier and government.
“The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association thinks it is a very important decision for competition. It is absolutely necessary to provide customers with the benefits of local number portability,” said Michael Altschul, CTIA senior vice president and general counsel.
In May, the FCC proposed fining CenturyTel $100,000 for not routing ported wireless numbers. The commission said CenturyTel did not route calls from some of its Washington state subscribers to ported wireless numbers, relying instead on the wireless carrier to route the calls. By agreeing to the fine, CenturyTel did not admit to any wrongdoing.
“We are very comfortable with the consent decree,” said John Jones, CenturyTel vice president of federal government relations. “Our goal was not to have a black mark … the fine was not the easiest but the most prudent action.”
Jones said the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau recognized that by May 24, all of CenturyTel’s switches were LNP compliant-significantly sooner than CenturyTel had originally planned.
“The fact that we were able to do that changed the complexion of the situation,” said Jones.
CenturyTel, which provides wireline service in 22 states, now has 12 months to complete its compliance plan. The FCC will not use any information developed during its investigation of the Washington matter in any proceeding going forward. “They will deal with any other situation on its own merits,” said Jones.
The FCC has encouraged state regulators not to grant waivers to rural wireline companies, arguing that the benefits of competition outweighed the harm done to wireline carriers but has also said that state regulators may determine whether the costs of implementing intermodal porting outweigh the benefits.
Altschul said this consent decree shows the FCC still believes in the benefits of LNP. “It is also a reminder to state regulators who are considering waivers that the rural local exchange carriers will have to upgrade their networks to support wireless LNP. These upgrade costs can be added to bills as surcharges so rural customers will be paying for it so they should receive the full benefits of intermodal porting,” he said.
While the FCC instituted wireline LNP years ago, carriers were not required to upgrade their switches until competition appeared in their service areas. For many rural carriers, that competition did not come and so they were unprepared for wireless LNP. Rural carriers that served wireless carriers whose coverage area overlapped areas that implemented porting in November were given an extension until May, but all carriers and all markets began porting May 24 unless state regulators gave the rural wireline carriers waivers.
The Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telephone Companies and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association have challenged the FCC’s intermodal porting rules. Oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has been scheduled for November.
