State Regulators Want a Rulemaking Proceeding on VoIP Access to Numbering Resources

A struggle over VoIP providers’ desire for direct access to numbering resources has quietly brewed in the FCC comment database over the last few months, but NARUC and other commenters hope the FCC will escalate the issue to a formal rulemaking proceeding. This proceeding goes back seven years, when Vonage and a handful of other VoIP providers filed petitions for waivers of the FCC’s rules regarding access to numbering resources (Section 52.15(g)(2)(i)). These waiver petitions lingered in regulatory limbo until December 27, 2011, when the FCC released a Public Notice to refresh the very stale record on VoIP provider access to numbering resources.

Vonage and its fellow petitioners essentially want direct access to numbering resources to “promote the deployment of new and innovative services, lead to lower consumer prices for VoIP service, improve the quality of Vonage’s services, and promote the Commission’s goal of moving toward an all IP network,” according to the Public Notice. Unfortunately for Vonage, opponents are urging the FCC to initiate a rulemaking proceeding rather than just rubber-stamp approval of the petitions. On March 30, NARUC filed a request for a rulemaking based on resolutions adopted at its February 2012 winter meeting.

NARUC explains that it has “historically agreed with the FCC that numbers are a limited resource which must be utilized in the most efficient way to accommodate new entrants and new technologies into the telecommunications marketplace. Poor management can lead to unnecessary exhaust of area codes requiring relief proceedings and development of implementation plans which are costly and can have a negative impact on both consumers and commerce.” Furthermore, numbering resources are only for carriers who have obtained the appropriate FCC licenses, State certification or FCC waivers (which the VoIP providers hope to obtain, but haven’t yet). In exchange for access to numbering resources, certified and licensed carriers have to meet various obligations. NARUC argues that numbering administrators NANPA and PA have no mechanism to monitor numbers given to unlicensed and non-certificated VoIP providers, and the VoIP providers “are not likely to have an incentive to efficiently utilize numbering resources.”

Among their concerns about granting VoIP providers direct access to numbering resources, NARUC and several state commissions worry that “Granting these petitions raises complex routing, number exhaust/utilization, interconnection, and intercarrier compensation issues.” A rulemaking proceeding should be initiated to establish a formal record on all of these important issues—issues that NARUC argues the VoIP petitioners have not adequately addressed. “For example, there is almost no detail in the record before the agency on how they will interact with existing carriers on crucial intercarrier issues like routing, interconnection (including reciprocal interconnection obligations), and compensation,” NARUC explains. NARUC urges the FCC to consider two minimum prerequisites in the public interest: let states determine which rate centers are available to VoIP providers; and make sure that unlicensed and non-certificated VoIP providers comply with Part 52 numbering rules in the same manner as the FCC has imposed on previous VoIP waiver recipients (namely SBC Internet Services, Inc., an affiliate of AT&T, who was granted a similar waiver in 2005).

Looking back through the docket on this issue (CC 99-200), other commenters encourage the FCC to initiate a formal rulemaking proceeding as well. NTCA filed comments on January 25, in which it argues that “a grant of the petitions would permit entities that hold no authority to offer telecommunications services to obtain telephone numbers directly from the North American Numbering Plan Administrator…The requested relief would have far-reaching implications and the Bureau should deny the petitions.” NTCA recommends a rulemaking proceeding given the complexity and confusion over interconnection agreements and the added uncertainty surrounding intercarrier compensation issues in the USF/ICC Order and FNPRM. NTCA definitely does not recommend that the FCC grant the waivers, which would “reverse decades of precedent by holding that [Enhanced Service Providers] can effectively self-provide access to the PSTN as if they were carriers without bearing many of the regulatory obligations that otherwise apply to carriers.”

Vonage’s most recent defense of its waiver request came on March 19 in an ex parte meeting with FCC staff.  Vonage discussed various technical, interconnection, routing, and numbering inventory concerns. Of note, Vonage argued that it will use “a standard technical framework, subject to commercially acceptable variations” for IP interconnection, and “its approach to IP interconnection permits backwards-compatibility to accommodate traffic to the PSTN going forward.” Vonage also expressed its commitment to work with states to preserve numbering resources, including a “voluntary offer to maintain a high number utilization rate, combined with its practice of taking smaller number blocks.”

Do you think Vonage and the VoIP providers will “promote even more disregard for number conservation and the rules which promote number conservation” if their waiver requests are granted, or will they help facilitate the deployment of new IP-based services? Should the FCC initiate a formal rulemaking proceeding to untangle the complex web of technical issues, or have the waiver requests sat idle long enough for interested parties to speak their peace? Although the core issues are number conservation and fair treatment of different classifications of carriers, the purported implications of the VoIP providers' waiver petitions appear to go much deeper into the murky worlds of interconnection and intercarrier compensation.