Efforts to head off an FCC vote in...

consumer and public interest groups. FCC and industry officials said Monday that Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to have lined up at least three votes for the Vonage trials, with commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel ready to vote yes. The NARUC-led coalition came in too late in the game, bringing with it public interest and consumer groups that had never lobbied on the issue to change votes on an order set for Thursday’s meeting, agency officials said. Supporters of the letter hoped they would raise enough questions to give Clyburn and Commissioner Ajit Pai pause, organizers said last week. “It seems to me the trial gives the bureau a chance to get real world data on porting and routing and number exhaust and intercarrier comp,” an agency official said. A second official said it’s hard to make a case against a pilot. Vonage lawyer Brita Strandberg of Wiltshire Grannis reported on recent calls with aides to Genachowski and Clyburn to address lingering concerns about the trials. “I explained that Vonage is committed, and has been committed throughout this proceeding, to working with the states to address their concerns about direct access to numbers,” said an ex parte filing posted Monday (http://bit.ly/XCJDsP). “Vonage does not seek access to any numbers other than those it can access indirectly today. Vonage has thus agreed to conditions suggested by states to address number and area code exhaust concerns. Vonage also believes any participant in a trial should work closely with relevant states to address those concerns.” The company also agreed to “a very high level of number utilization -- 65 percent,” as a condition of the waiver, Strandberg said. “In contrast, the CLECs from whom Vonage currently buys numbers are among the most inefficient users of numbers, with utilization averaging less than 35 percent.” The letter said the pilots will “test the feasibility of direct access and provide information about routing, porting, and intercarrier compensation that is critical to informed decisionmaking; it will not prejudge the rulemaking.” Prior to the release of a sunshine notice on the FCC meeting, Vonage CEO Marc Lefar also left a voicemail for Zach Katz, the commission’s chief of staff, on “the importance of the trial to provide real-world data to support the NRPM [sic], and noted that recently raised concerns about the Commission’s consideration of direct access have been addressed extensively in the record,” said a second ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/XNtqDs). Also posted by the FCC Monday was an ex parte filing on a meeting between Level 3 and Bandwidth.com officials and officials in the Office of General Counsel. The two companies have been leading opponents of the pilots. “CLEC Participants articulated that Vonage and other Petitioners have failed to meet the legal standard for a waiver of Section 52.15(g)(2)(i) and that due process demands that the Commission act only after issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, including the question of whether changes to the Commission’s numbering rules are warranted,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/Zt0zj4). Matt Wood and Derek Turner of Free Press said they had received a call from Genachowski adviser Michael Steffen on Free Press’s support for the NARUC letter. “Together we questioned the reported decision to grant Vonage a waiver for direct access to numbering resources prior to the conclusion -- or even initiation -- of a notice and comment rulemaking on the same topic,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/ZsWF9L).