Tw Telecom Asks for Title II Classification of VoIP
The FCC should classify tw telecom’s facilities-based VoIP services as telecom under Title II and give the company the right “to establish direct IP-to-IP interconnections” with incumbent carriers, the CLEC said in a petition for declaratory ruling. Thursday’s petition is the first of its kind since the Supreme Court ruled in Talk America in June that incumbents must interconnect with competitors “at any technically feasible point” (CD June 10 p7).
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Tw telecom said it’s asking for “a two-part clarification” from the commission. First, that tw telecom’s VoIP offerings “are telecommunications as well as telephone exchange services and/or exchange access, and accordingly, TWTC has the right under Section 251(c)(2) of the Act to establish direct IP-to-IP interconnection with incumbent LECs for the transition and routing of TWTC’s facilities-based VoIP services.” Tw telecom said it also wants the FCC to clarify that the same section gives the company rights to direct IP-to-IP interconnection with incumbents. “Indeed, the Commission has already held that voice traffic that originates and terminates in [time division multiplexing] but is transported in IP is a telecommunications service,” the petition said. “There is also no question that the TDM-based (i.e., circuit-switched) local exchange services transmitted as IP-in-the-middle voice traffic are telephone exchange services or exchange access.”
"It is critical that the FCC clarify this fact as soon as possible,” the petition said. Tw telecom, “like most other telephone service providers, is quickly replacing legacy TDM technology with IP technology.” The problem is that incumbents “such as AT&T and Verizon have seized upon the industry’s transition to IP technology as a pretext for denying competitive carriers the right to IP-to-IP interconnection under Section 251(c)(2) for exchanging facilities-based VoIP traffic,” the petition said. “If this situation persists, TWTC and other similarly-situated competitors are unlikely to be able to include IP-to-IP interconnection arrangements in the next generation of interconnection agreements. Such an outcome would harm consumer welfare.” Neither AT&T nor Verizon officials responded to requests for comment.
Tw telecom’s facilities-based VoIP fits the Telecom Act’s definition of a telecom service because it offers “pure transmission capability’ for a fee, the petition said. “It would be hard to find services that fit more squarely within the definition of telecommunications service than TWTC’s facilities-based VoIP services.”