Inteliquent, Peerless Air Interconnection Dispute in Draft Intercarrier NPRM Proceeding
Inteliquent backed certain FCC efforts to root out intercarrier compensation arbitrage proposed in a draft NPRM that was adopted and withdrawn from Thursday's commissioners' meeting agenda (see 1806050057), while it objected to other aspects. The networking provider "and its customers…
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suffer substantial harm from the myriad arbitrage schemes of 'free' conferencing and other high-volume calling platforms," said a filing on a May 31 meeting with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and Wireline Bureau staffers, posted Monday in docket 18-155. It welcomed efforts to curb the abuses, including draft proposals "to eliminate financial incentives for parties to engage in access stimulation." But Inteliquent urged the FCC "not to undermine the market for legitimate intermediate services" and disputed allegations made by Peerless Network and cited by the NPRM. "These allegations wrongly characterize arrangements in which a wireless carrier relies upon an intermediate provider for indirect interconnection" through a "standard operating procedure" known as a local exchange routing guide, Inteliquent said. It said "carriers interconnecting via Inteliquent’s tandem are assessed a tariffed rate, which is benchmarked to the rate of the competing ILEC," contrary to suggestions it sets rates unilaterally. In discussions with the Pai and O'Rielly aides, Peerless also backed FCC efforts to curb arbitrage, and targeted schemes by national wireless providers, particularly "T-Mobile’s unlawful refusal to offer direct connects for wholesale traffic," requiring "terminating traffic to be routed through" its partner, Inteliquent. Peerless endorsed CenturyLink’s proposed direct connect rule (see 1805220042). T-Mobile didn't comment Tuesday.