FCC Issues Payphone Compensation Rules

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has modified payphone per-call compensation rules to fairly compensate payphone service providers for coinless calls involving multiple carriers. The American Public Communications Council estimates 20 percent to 50 percent of revenue from payphone calls routed from a long- distance carrier to a switch-based reseller is not collected.

The new rules will require the first underlying facilities-based long-distance carrier to compensate payphone providers at a mutually agreeable rate, arrange for tracking payphone calls to determine which calls should be compensated, and to give payphone providers a statement on the coinless payphone calls it receives. Additionally, resellers must reimburse the carrier for the costs incurred by the carrier for payphone providers’ fees and tracking calls.

In other FCC news, President Bush submitted a budget proposal for $248,545,000 to Congress for the Commission’s fiscal year 2002 funding. This reflects an $18,545,000 increase from the FY 2001 budget. The funding is requested to cover expenses from the rise in salaries and benefits costs, to upgrade technology infrastructure and to maintain electronic filing systems.