Source: OPASTCO Press Release

Jill Canfield from the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Derrick Owens from the Western Telecommunications Alliance, Colin Sandy from the National Exchange Carrier Association, Stuart Polikoff and John McHugh from the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, Kevin Larson from Consolidated Telephone Company, Dave Bickett from Park Region Mutual Telephone Company and Fritz Hendricks from Onvoy met with the following representatives from the Federal Communications Commission: Dan Ball, Travis Litman, Lynne Engledow, Victoria Goldberg, Al Lewis, John Hunter, Margaret Dailey, Terry Cavanaugh, and Tracy Bridgham.

The group discussed problems related to the transmission and completion of calls placed to customers served by rural local exchange carriers. The Rural Representatives identified a variety of concerns, including but not limited to: (1) calls that ring for the calling party, but not at all or on a delayed basis for the called customer of the rural LEC; (2) calling parties who receive incorrect or misleading message interceptions before the call ever reaches the rural LEC or the tandem it subtends; (3) calls that appear to “loop” between routing providers, but never reach the rural LEC or the tandem it subtends; and (4) incorrect caller ID that displays to called parties (to the extent such calls reach the rural LEC network at all).

The Rural Representatives explained how difficult it is to identify such problems when they occur. Specifically, because these issues arise in the context of calls placed by customers of other carriers and because the calls may never reach the rural LEC network at all, such problems are most often identified only when the calling party communicates the concern to the called party, and then only if the called party in turn reports this concern to its serving rural LEC. The Rural Representatives further discussed how difficult it is to locate and resolve the source of the issue even once identified, because there are a variety of platforms on which the troubles arise and a number of logistical and operational barriers to “troubleshooting” problems on other carriers’ networks. The Rural Representatives indicated, however, that their fact-finding supports the conclusion that the problems appear to arise from how originating carriers choose to set up the signaling and routing of their calls. They described their efforts to work with the carriers of calling parties to address the problem and the inconsistent results thereof.

The Rural Representatives described how this problem has become a nationwide and industry-wide epidemic that directly and adversely affects consumers. They gave several examples of how this epidemic threatens public safety and homeland security, and explained how it degrades the integrity and reliability of the nation’s telecommunications network.