CLECs Push Massachusetts Regulator to Exert IP-to-IP Interconnection Oversight
Should telcos have to file IP-to-IP interconnection agreements with state regulators? Several competitive carriers say yes. In a Thursday petition, they question Verizon’s undisclosed potential IP-to-IP interconnection agreements and ask the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to remedy the situation. They pointed to February 2012 statements from Verizon that it had one such agreement in place for its FiOS VoIP service and is “negotiating others.” The group of CLECs, which includes EarthLink Business, Cbeyond Communications and tw data services, don’t view the action as legal or fair, according to the petition. The “failure of Verizon” has prevented state regulators from their “statutory duty,” the carriers said.
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They look to the Massachusetts department’s authority in enforcing several provisions. The state regulators should determine and direct Verizon New England to “file for Department review and approval” of “the admitted (and any other) interconnection agreement that requires or permits the exchange of voice,” the petition said. The carriers should have the chance to “evaluate this agreement and adopt it if appropriate,” they said, citing benefits to consumers. “Absent the ability to interconnect and exchange traffic in IP format, the Competitive Carriers, other competitive facilities-based providers, and their customers will experience higher costs, degraded service quality, and slower deployment of IP technology,” the carriers said. “Such an outcome would harm public welfare.”
"Voice traffic is voice traffic,” ETC Group President David Malfara, a consultant, told us. The “social contract” of interconnection agreements is “not going away because of a technology evolution,” he said: “I think state commissions will take an active interest. You'll see more tension as carriers transition to all-IP networks.” This petition is simply an example of companies trying to get Verizon to “play by the rules,” he said. Verizon and AT&T have shied away from discussion of such interconnection regulation but “these issues are beginning to surface,” he said. States should be able to “appropriately oversee” these agreements, which regardless of whether VoIP is defined as telecom or information, are “covered completely” by the Communications Act in Sections 251 and 252, he said.
The petition and others have pointed to state commissions’ authority under Section 252, which covers procedures for interconnection agreement negotiation, arbitration and approval. Verizon’s filing before the FCC (http://xrl.us/bodwkm) last February insisted that VoIP provides an information service, not telecom, and feared being subject to state commission authority. AT&T executives have voiced similar concerns: “Some parties are again arguing that [IP-IP interconnection] regulation is needed to prevent certain providers from exploiting their terminating monopoly,” said Vice President-Federal Regulatory Affairs Hank Hultquist in a June post on the telco’s policy blog (http://xrl.us/bod6ma). “They have it exactly backwards. Without regulation, there is no effective terminating monopoly.” A request for IP interconnection isn’t a request for the routing of exchange service and access, Verizon said, cautioning against creating regulatory requirements for IP interconnection. It considered the Section 252 implications -- “more than fifty different state public utility commissions applying their own views of appropriate IP interconnection arrangements,” a “Balkanized process” that might harm consumers, Verizon said.
"Section 252 is intended to prevent secret deals and unfair dealings,” Joe Gillan a consulting economist at Gillan Associates said by email. “It is the least intrusive regulatory protection imaginable -- it merely requires public disclosure, a regulatory check on discrimination, and the ability for competitors to opt-in. Verizon shouldn’t have to be asked to follow the law; it should have filed this agreement long ago.” Gillan has worked with CLECs and competitive providers. He and Malfara collaborated on an IP interconnection agreements paper (http://xrl.us/bod59v) for the National Regulatory Research Institute, an affiliate of NARUC, last summer.
CompTel advocated for open interconnection in its FCC comments (http://xrl.us/bod6aw) about the IP transition last week. AT&T’s plan is not the way to go, CompTel said, giving recommendations about what IP transition tests should feature: “The test should include SIP [session initiation protocol, common for VoIP providers] interconnection and the development of an interconnection agreement ('ICA'), compliant with section 251/252, that will be publicly filed and available for opt-in by other carriers to curb further disputes on the matter.”
A department spokeswoman confirmed it has received the petition but declined to comment. Verizon declined comment.