FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION ORDER & OTHER ISSUESStan Redden – Vice President Software Development

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Rural carriers have long been experiencing the following issues with long distance calls terminated to their customers:

Poor call quality

Lengthy ‘dead air’ period on the callers phone after dialing – they hear nothing

False busy signals

Inaccurate intercept messages such as “The number you have dialed is not in service” or “Your call cannot be completed as dialed”

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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No audible voice on one end of the call, or both, even after connecting

Audible ringing on the caller’s phone but no actual ringing on the called party’s end

Caller hears 15 to 20 rings on their end, but called party only hears 2 or 3 before answering

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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One of every five long distance calls placed to rural locations are experiencing these issues which result in the following:

Causes rural businesses to lose customers

Cuts families off from their relatives in rural areas

Creates potential for dangerous delays in public safety

communications in rural areas

Culprit seems to be related to the use of intermediate providers to carry these calls, most notably ‘Least Cost Routers’

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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After on-going complaints by the rural community and several different telecom agencies demanding action on this issue, the FCC finally release a NRPM (Docket 13-39) to address this issue

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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Order outlines the following requirements:

All service providers (wireline, wireless, and VoIP) who have over 100K domestic customers and who use a ‘intermediate carrier’ to provide long distance service must comply with the data request

Must retain all long distance call detail records placed for a period of 6 months

Must file a ‘call completion ratio’ report with the FCC on a quarterly basis

Those failing to comply with the order may be subject to fines and possibly other enforcement actions by the FCC

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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FCC Reporting Template:

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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Report breaks out outbound long distance calls into the following categories:

By State

By Rural OCN

By Interstate, Intrastate, and Total

Total Calls Attempted

Total Calls Answered

Total Calls Busy

Total Calls Ring No Answer

Total Calls Unassigned Number

Percentage of calls Answered and Completed

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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Order is currently in the comment cycle

Industry waiting on the FCC to make final ruling on order details and set implementation date

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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Depending upon final FCC Order, modifications to your switch may be made

AMA Module 130 contains the fields Facility Release Cause and Call Characteristic

Facility Release Cause field contains the information to identify specific types of termination cause (one of the items on the current FCC Reporting Template)

Call Characteristic field contains characteristics of the call (least cost routing, Intelligent Network Reject, etc.)

AMA Module 051 contains similar information but is related to Operator Services

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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CDG, Teletech, and DataTech have joined forces to develop a new process to address this issue

The result is a new option to the CDG Mediation system that has the ability to process and store the necessary CDRs and to produce the quarterly report as required by the FCC

Process will utilize TeleTech’s Localizer database to discern long distance calls from local

FCC RURAL CALL COMPLETION

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Process will also support a QRT function to support deeper dives into the data

DataTech’s analytical and regulatory expertise will be available to further analyze the data and assist customers in addressing any reporting issues

Please contact Jon Jones of DataTech, Kim Russo of TeleTech, or your CDG representative for further information on this solution!

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Transition to Bill & Keep regime continues on path for terminating switched access charges and reciprocal compensation

Rate of Return Companies:

Step 1: July 1, 2012 – reduce rates to 50% of interstate

Step 2: July 1, 2013 – reduce rates to interstate parity

Step 3: July 1, 2014 – reduce rates by 1/3 of the difference between interstate and $0.005

Step 4: July 1, 2015 – reduce rates by 1/3 of the difference between interstate and $0.005

FCC USF/ICC REFORM UPDATE

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Step 5: July 1, 2016 – reduce rates to $0.005

Step 6: July 1, 2017 – reduce rates by 1/3 difference between $0.005 and $0.0007

Step 7: July 1, 2018 – reduce rates by 2/3 difference between $0.005 and $0.0007

Step 8: July 1, 2019 – reduce rates to $0.0007

Step 9: July 1, 2020 – Bill and Keep

FCC USF/ICC REFORM UPDATE

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Price Cap Companies:

Step 1: July 1, 2012 – reduce rates to 50% of interstate

Step 2: July 1, 2013 – reduce rates to interstate parity

Step 3: July 1, 2014 – reduce rates by 1/3 of the difference between interstate and $0.0007

Step 4: July 1, 2015 – reduce rates by 1/3 of the difference between interstate and $0.0007

Step 5: July 1, 2016 – reduce rates to $0.0007

Step 6: July 1, 2017 – Bill and Keep

FCC USF/ICC REFORM UPDATE

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Effective July 1, 2014, originating VoIP usage will be subject to the same rating rules as interstate VoIP

FCC still has not addressed any reforms concerning originating traffic

Industry still awaiting the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the USF/ICC Transformation Order case where oral arguments were held in November, 2013

Most experts do not expect a decision to be rendered until mid to late 2014

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Numerous critical issues that are awaiting FCC decision:

Reform of Special Access

Net Neutrality

IP Transition

Others???

Douglas Meredith of JSI will be addressing these issues and others during our general session today at 1:30pm in the Alma Mater room

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