Public Knowledge, Bandwidth.com Raise VoIP Numbering Concerns
Public Knowledge and VoIP company Bandwidth.com are concerned about an FCC draft order that would give VoIP providers the ability to obtain phone numbers directly from numbering administrators, an action which is on the tentative agenda for the June 18 meeting (see 1505280059). Public Knowledge said the FCC should not give phone numbers directly to VoIP providers unless it can ensure it has the jurisdiction to safeguard the numbering system and network security. Bandwidth.com said it had concerns about the FCC's VoIP numbering plans without the benefit of further analysis, given that the change would touch "virtually every aspect of voice communications regulation." Level 3 said the FCC needed to take steps to ensure competitive LECs can collect intercarrier compensation if VoIP providers obtain numbers directly.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The FCC shouldn't give phone numbers directly to VoIP providers and other entities that aren't regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, PK said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-97 after meeting with agency officials. "Given potential concerns over the ability of the Commission to regulate VOIP providers under ancillary (Title I) authority, the Commission cannot properly ensure that non-Title II entities will behave in a responsible manner with the numbering resource, or that the Commission can require VOIP providers to adequately serve the public interest and convenience," it said.
PK also raised cybersecurity concerns, saying phone numbers are the "proverbial 'key to the kingdom'" for the traditional international phone system and are distributed only to "trusted entities" certified at the federal and state levels. PK said VoIP providers have no such credentialing duty or even a requirement to maintain physical assets in the U.S., raising the possibility that numbering blocks could be given to entities outside U.S. law enforcement jurisdiction. The VoIP numbering change also could affect the FCC's proposed transition to a new local number portability administrator, said PK, which said the commission should ensure that "nothing in the item will interfere in the Commission's obligations to the international community to maintain number standards under the North American Number Plan" and the 1988 ITRs" (International Telecommunications Regulations).
PK Senior Vice President Harold Feld told us Monday that his group wasn't opposed to giving VoIP providers direct access to phone numbers per se, but wants to make sure the FCC "has thought of everything and considered the implications of moving forward." Feld said giving phone numbers to non-Title II entities makes it "much harder to exercise jurisdiction over them." Feld said he didn't expect the FCC to reclassify interconnected VoIP as a Title II telecom service, but he did hope it would establish some sort of certification process for the VoIP providers. The FCC didn't comment.
"Our concern is that the FCC retain sufficient authority over entities to make sure the phone system remains secure and sound," Feld said. "We don't want them to give numbers away and find out they don't have enforcement jurisdiction. ... We're also mindful that phone numbers is an area where we have international obligations. We don't want to screw up the global telephone system." Feld said he believes this FCC is "obviously concerned" about the issues but the agency was not yet in a position to share details about what safeguards it was planning.
Bandwidth.com said the FCC hadn't publicly addressed about 60 pages of issues raised in a 2013 NPRM that included a few small-scale trial scenarios for VoIP direct access to phone numbers, nor "confronted the fundamental legal and operational issues that the Numbering trials highlighted but which have existed since" a 2005 SBCIS waiver order was granted, according to a Bandwidth.com ex parte filing. Among the most important issues raised in the NPRM, Bandwidth.com said, were: whether the FCC should implement a certification or blanket authorization process for interconnected VoIP providers; whether there are ways to ensure that interconnected VoIP providers are subject to the same penalties and enforcement process that traditional common carriers are; the legal distinctions between telecom carriers and interconnected VoIP providers; how interconnection and intercarrier compensation would work; and various questions about numbering issues. "In a period where the traditional telecommunications regulatory framework is transforming and fraying in a multitude of ways," Bandwidth said it "questions the advisability of introducing uncertainties unnecessarily."
Level 3 believes the FCC needs to adjust its VoIP Symmetry Rule if it gives VoIP providers direct access to phone numbers, said a Level 3 ex parte filing. Level 3 said the FCC had already confirmed that CLECs could assess end office local switching charges when they are listed in the Number Portability Administration Center data base as providing the calling party or dialed number. "There is no reason with direct access for VoIP providers to differentiate the intercarrier compensation that a CLEC can charge when it, together with its VoIP partner, provides the functional equivalent of end office local switching based upon whether the CLEC or the VoIP partner is the party listed in the [NPAC] database as providing the number of the calling party or dialed number," Level 3 said.