Regulatory Watch : FCC to Probe Overseas Wireless Termination Fees
John L. Guerra
04/01/2004
On March 11, after years of complaints from U.S. long-distance carriers, the FCC launched an inquiry into overseas wireless operators and the allegedly excessive termination fees they bill American carriers.
The FCC says it’s entering the fray because it wants to determine if those high rates are being passed onto the American consumer.
American long distance carriers have known for years that it’s extremely difficult to determine when their calls terminate on foreign wireless networks. The problem plagues carriers with an already shrinking margin for international long distance traffic; overseas carriers charge much higher rates for terminating calls on their wireless networks. If the U.S. carrier hasn’t included those wireless termination fees into the per-minute rate they charge their customers, that carrier ends up paying the difference.
For years, U.S. regulators and trade experts have talked about the “per-minute trade imbalance” and the high rates foreign carriers and PTTs charge for terminating U.S. traffic on wireless networks.
The FCC’s International Bureau announced a couple of months ago that it had been reviewing international agreements policy and examining its guidelines for interconnection rates to see if it could start loosening some rules and tightening others in the face of growing competition and falling international settlement rates.
With the inquiry launch in March, the commission apparently came to the conclusion that it isn’t applying enough pressure on the growing number of overseas mobile carriers that may be charging excessive rates to U.S. carriers.
“We’ve been examining almost all of our policies regarding interconnection with foreign carriers with an eye to reforming our international settlements policy,” said Mark Uretsky, industry economist with the FCC’s International Bureau, during a February interview with Billing World & OSS Today. “Because rates for termination are high, calling out from the U.S. means that U.S. consumers are paying above-cost rates every minute that they call.”
On the same day it launched its inquiry, the commission announced that it had removed some international routes from its International Settlements Policy rules. The action gives U.S. carriers more commercial flexibility in what they charge their U.S. subscribers and will allow for more cost-based rates for consumers, the commission said.
CARE Requirements May Change
Should the FCC impose mandatory minimum information sharing requirements on all local and long distance phone companies? That’s what the commission is trying to find out. It wants to change the contents of CARE records—the customer information carriers share with one another for establishing and maintaining customer accounts. The CARE system is voluntary and was adopted after the breakup of AT&T. AT&T, Sprint, and MCI have all petitioned the commission to change required info in the files to reflect changes in the marketplace. Now that local telephone companies (ILECs) can compete for long-distance customers, and there are more local phone companies (CLECs), long distance carriers want what information is required to be changed.
CARE data are not currently exchanged in a uniform manner now that the number of local phone companies has increased significantly. This often leaves long distance carriers in the dark as to whether a customer remains on the network, has switched to another local or long distance company or has made changes in the billing name and address (BNA). The end result can be customer complaints about double billing, continued billing, cramming, slamming and violations of the Commission’s Truth-in-Billing requirements when they do not receive accurate, timely or complete information regarding their customers’ accounts.
Commission Turning to Wireless Spam Rules
To prevent unsolicited commercial email from clogging the nation’s wireless networks and handheld devices, the FCC wants carriers, equipment manufacturers, network experts, direct marketing groups and other interested parties to send advice its way.
In a Notice for Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), thecommission wants comments on these issues:
• Should there be a list of, or a naming convention for, domain names or registry that helps users determine quickly that a message is spam
• How to provide subscribers with the ability to avoid receiving mobile spam and how to electronically tell the sender of the unwanted message that the subscriber doesn’t want any more messages
• Whether wireless carriers should be exempt from having to obtain prior permission from their own customers before they can send them text messages to their wireless device
• How senders of unsolicited text messages can comply with the law while adhering to technical requirements such as limited message length and mandatory language in a commercial message.
The FCC also is trying to determine how to grant safe harbor to telemarketers who accidentally dial a cell phone. The NPRM is in response to the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act, which was signed into law by President Bush this winter.
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