AT&T Asks Tampa Court to Compel Document Production From Voxon
An AT&T petition Monday in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa seeks to compel the production of documents from Voxon under a Sept. 19 subpoena issued by the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in a case (docket 2:21-cv-02771) in which AT&T is a defendant. Core Communications sued AT&T there in June 2021, seeking the recovery of $11.4 million in unpaid access services charges, and AT&T said in the petition (docket 8:22-mc-00043) that the Voxon documents are “directly relevant” to its defense in the case.
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Access services and their associated charges are billed by local carriers like Core to long-distance carriers like AT&T under a “complex system” regulated by the FCC and state public utilities commissions, said AT&T’s petition. The money that Core seeks to collect from AT&T is for access services that Core claims to have billed AT&T for transporting toll-free calls to AT&T and its customers, it said.
AT&T learned through discovery in the Philadelphia litigation that Voxon, a provider of 3D volumetric communications services, “delivered a substantial amount of toll-free calls” to Core, which then routed those calls to AT&T, said the petition. “Core charged AT&T for those calls, but AT&T disputes the validity of the charges,” it said. The documents AT&T seeks from Voxon will determine whether the calls Voxon routed to Core, which were then routed to AT&T, are “compensable” under FCC rules and other law, it said.
Voxon has been unresponsive to the subpoena and has ignored AT&T’s requests to discuss it, “despite repeated attempts to gain compliance,” said the petition. In its unresponsiveness, Voxon has “waived any objections that it may have had” to the subpoena, and must now “fully comply with its obligation” under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it said. Voxon didn’t respond Wednesday to emailed requests for comment.
Though Voxon is a non-party to the Philadelphia litigation, “its conduct is directly relevant,” said the petition. Core routes toll-free “8YY” phone traffic to AT&T and other interexchange carriers (IXCs) under tariffs filed with the FCC and the state PUCs, it said. “Core aggregates 100% of the 8YY calls that it transports by purchasing wholesale 8YY traffic from other upstream providers,” it said.
AT&T also learned through discovery that Voxon is one of the upstream providers that Core buys 8YY traffic from, said the petition. Core then charges IXCs like AT&T “certain access charges for routing that traffic to them,” it said. Voxon’s 8YY traffic therefore “serves as the basis for a significant portion of the charges that Core seeks to recover” from AT&T in the Philadelphia litigation, it said.
The problem is, Core can’t bill AT&T and other IXCs for “fraudulent” 8YY traffic, such as “illegitimate” robocalls that Core “failed to police and prevent from coming onto the public network,” said the petition. AT&T and Core dispute “whether Core has properly billed AT&T for the 8YY access service charges that it seeks to recover” in the Philadelphia litigation, it said. AT&T’s specific defense for nonpayment “is that Core improperly billed access charges to which Core was not entitled to seek payment,” it said. “Voxon is directly involved, given its relationship with Core. Indeed, much of the 8YY traffic that Core seeks payment on from AT&T originated from Voxon.”