Verizon’s access recovery charge (ARC) computation and allocation in its...

for a ruling that Verizon’s actions violate the commission’s rules against rate discrimination (CD Oct 1 p21). The rules are meant to “confer flexibility to carriers” by letting them allocate ARCs at the holding company level, and to “exercise their own business judgment” in order to ensure rates remain affordable, CPUC said. These allocation decisions let carriers “recover lost intercarrier compensation revenues from their own customers to the greatest extend possible, thus limiting the potential drain” on the USF, CPUC said. “The fact that these rules have caused frustration and a sense of unfairness is regrettable; however, the CPUC objects to the direction of this frustration towards the residential customers of California. The CPUC does not agree that the Commission should revise Verizon’s rates in California simply because Pennsylvania (or D.C., for that matter) is unhappy with its rates.”