20041122Application.pdf

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Conley E. Ward (ISB No. 1683)
GIVENS PURSLEY LLP
601 W. Bannock Street
O. Box 2720
Boise, ID 83701-2720
Telephone No. [phone]
Fax No. [phone]
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Attorneys for Rural Telephone Company
BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
IN THE MATTER OF THE
APPLICA TION OF RURAL
TELEPHONE COMPANY FOR
ADDITIONAL SUSPENSION OF LNP
REQUIREMENTS.
Case No.
().
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APPLICATION OF RURAL
TELEPHONE COMPANY
Rural Telephone ("RTC" or "Company ), by and through its attorneys, Givens
Pursley LLP, files this Petition for an extension of its current Temporary Suspension of
Wireline to Wireless Number Portability Responsibilities ("Petition
).
On March 26th
2004, Idaho Public Utilities Commission ("Commission ) Order No. 29452 granted the
Petition of the Idaho Telephone Association ("ITA"), filed on behalf of sixteen local
exchange carriers, for a suspension of the carriers' requirement to implement intermodal
local number portability for six months, from May 24, 2004 to November 24 2004. RTC
was one of the sixteen local exchange carriers. R TC hereby requests that the
Commission grant an additional 12 month extension to RTC for implementation of its
LNP requirements in its Tipanuk exchange, and 36 month extensions in its Atlanta, Boise
River, Prairie, Shoup, and Three Creek exchanges.
APPLICA TION OF RURAL TELEPHONE COMPANY - Page 1 of 9
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ORIGINAL "
BACKGROUND
The Company is a rural telephone company as defined by the Act.
Additionally, the Company satisfies the criteria set forth in Section 251(f)(2), which
provides in pertinent part, that LECs "with fewer than two percent of the Nation
subscriber lines installed in the aggregate nationwide may petition a state commission for
a suspension or modification 2 of the number portability requirements.3 As of December
2002, approximately 188 million local telephone lines were in service nationwide.4 The
Company has approximately 700 lines and serves far less than the 2% threshold of 3.
million access lines. Therefore, the Company is eligible under the applicable FCC rule to
petition this Commission for relief.
As the Commission is aware, the Company provides local exchange and
exchange access services within its service areas. The Company serves the following rate
centers: Atlanta, Boise River, Prairie, Shoup, Tipanuk and Three Creek. These rate
centers are all located in rural and remote areas of Idaho. The Company s largest rate
center, Boise River, serves approximately 350 customers, with the second largest rate
center being Tipanuk, which serves approximately 118 customers. The company s other
rate centers serve less than 50 customers each. The Company has switches in each one of
these rate centers.
None of the Company s rate center switches are LNP capable.The
Company serves each of these rate centers with individual Redcom host switches. The
47 V.C. ~ 153(37).
47 V.C ~ 251(f)(2).
Section 251 (b )(2) states that "The duty to provide, to the extent technically feasible, number
portability in accordance with requirements prescribed by the Commission." 47 V.C. ~ 251(b)(2).
See Federal Communications Commission Releases Study on Telephone Trends " FCC News
Release (reI. Aug. 7, 2003).
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current version of the Company s Redcom switches would require major upgrades or
total switch replacements for LNP functionality. The Company is in the process of
upgrading the Tipanuk switch with SS7 and LNP functionality, but this upgrade will not
be completed until the fall of 2005. The projected cost for this Tipanuk switch upgrade is
approximately $51 575.The cost estimate for upgrading all the remaining exchange
switches for LNP capability is approximately $688 437 for a total cost of $ 740 01.2.
Further, the Company stresses that at this time, the amounts provided for upgrading the
switches to make them LNP capable are just estimates. The costs could be higher. The
Company will negotiate the cost of any switch replacements/upgrades in order to provide
the best solution to ensure the customers receive the best value for the capital
expenditure. F or the switch upgrade costs alone, the cost per line (based upon the
estimates) would be $17.57 per month over a five year amortized recovery period. FCC
rules currently allow LNP costs to be recovered from all end users (47 CFR ~52.33).
In addition to the switch costs, there are other substantial costs associated
with implementation of LNP. These costs include such items as translation support
efforts, back office costs related to billing and plant records, and LNP dip contract costs.
To the extent that the Company is required to port numbers (and transport associated
calls) beyond its rate center( s) to other rate centers where wireless carriers have
established their points of presence, the Company will likely be required to install
facilities that the Company does not currently have in place. The Company will need
either to establish facilities between its exchanges and the wireless carrier s point of
presence or arrange with an intermediate carrier to transport the call. None of these
facilities and/or arrangements currently exist and it will obviously require time to put
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them in place. Many of these actions must occur sequentially and some are dependent
upon the availability and time schedules of vendors and other carriers. The Company is
currently investigating the extent of these requirements and their respective costs.
In addition to the costs, the only R TC exchange where wireless carriers
have service coverage is in the Tipanuk exchange area. All the other R TC exchanges:
Atlanta, Boise River, Prairie, Shoup, and Three Creek have no wireless service
coverage. The Company has verified this with the wireless carriers who have sent RTC
requests for intermodal Local Number Portability (LNP) by reviewing these wireless
carrier s coverage maps that are available on their websites. The Company has received
letters from wireless carriers, T-Mobile USA ("Mobile ) and Verizon Wireless
Verizon ) requesting LNP in all R TC service areas, whereas, Sprint PCS ("Sprint") has
requested LNP only in RTC's Tipanuk exchange service area.
Although LNP was established as an obligation over eight years ago, the
Company has not received a single request for LNP from any of its customers during that
entire time period. Further, despite the widespread publicity of the FCC Order since
November 2003, the Company has still not received even one consumer request for
intermodal LNP.
Until the Company upgrades or replaces its switches, it is technically
impossible for the Company to provide LNP by the November 24 2004 deadline. The
estimated economic cost of $740 000.00 to upgrade or replace its switches, in light of the
fact the Company serves approximately seven hundred access lines, makes deployment of
the switches at this time an undue economic burden. But the Company believes that it
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will be able to complete its switch upgrade and have other facilities in place to implement
LNP by the fall of 2005 in its Tipanuk exchange area.
II.GRANTING THIS PETITION IS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
The Act vests the state commissions with authority to balance the requests
for wireline-wireless number portability with the potential harmful public interest
consequences, if the Commission determines that such suspension or modification
(A)IS necessary (i) to avoid a significant adverse economic impact on users of
telecommunications services generally;(ii) to avoid imposing a requirement that is unduly
economically burdensome; or(iii) to avoid imposing a requirement that is technically
infeasible; and
is consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity. (B)
Grant this Petition will avoid a significant adverse economic impact on
users of the Company s telecommunications services. As demonstrated herein, the costs
of implementing number portability are significant, not only with respect to the
deployment of the hardware and software necessary to achieve porting capability, but
also with respect to ongoing data costs and administrative processes, and the
establishment of the proper arrangements among the affected carriers. Obviously, this is a
significant adverse economic impact for the Company s customers. Furthermore, it is
extremely inequitable and contrary to the public interest and ratemaking policies, to force
consumers who are not using a service to shoulder the entire cost..
10.Initial and on-going costs incurred to satisfy the request of the CMRS
providers ultimately are recovered through rates paid by the Company s customers.
Compounding the adverse effect of this result is the fact that most of these customers will
47 V.C. ~ 251(f)(2).
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receive no benefit from the provision of the wireline-to-wireless number portability. One
of the most significant reasons why this Petition should be granted is the complete lack of
any demand for intermodal LNP. The Company has not received a single request for
LNP from any of its customers. Moreover, there hasn t been a high level of demand for
intermodal LNP in other rural areas. LNP implementation by the Company at this time
and under the present circumstances represents an unduly burdensome economic
expense, which would cause a significant adverse economic impact on the Company
end users. Further, this is contrary to the universal service goals for rural consumers
because incurring these costs will unnecessarily increase the Company s state USF draw.
Accordingly, all of subscribers in Idaho would be adversely impacted by an increase in
rates in order to accommodate the request of the CMRS providers. 6 Under these
circumstances, waiting for planned switch replacement makes sense.
11.When the FCC initially promulgated its number portability rules, it agreed
with commenters that requiring rural LECs to provide number portability where no
competitor has requested such function would "burden rural LECs significantly without
benefiting the public by increasing competition.7 Accordingly, the FCC determined to
limit deployment of portability "to those switches for which a competitor has expressed
interest in deployment.,,8 The FCC further found that if competition is not imminent in
the areas covered by rural/smaller LEC switches
, "
then the rural or smaller LEC will not
receive requests from competing carriers to implement portability, and thus will not need
See also Number Resource Decision 17 FCC Rcd at 262 (Imposing the cost of implementing the
technology for number pooling, which is the same technology that is used to implement number portability
on small and rural carriers "may delay efforts to bring advanced services to rural subscribers
).
Number Portability Reconsideration 12 FCC Rcd at 7298-, 7301.
Id. at 7301; see also 47 C.R. ~ 52.23(c) ("Beginning January 1 , 1999, all LECs must make a
long-term database method for number portability available within six months after a specific request by
another telecommunications carrier in areas in which that telecommunications carrier is operating or plans
to operate
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to expend its resources, until competition actually develops in its service area.This
reasoned and deliberate approach to competition has previously served the interests of
rural LECs well by allowing rural LECs to avoid incurring premature or unnecessary
expenses. However, with the advent of wireless LNP, the CMRS carriers have blanketed
the country with requests for LNP deployment with little or no apparent evaluation or
analysis of the markets for which the requests were made.
12.Given the fact that the Company has no present ability to provide LNP or
to provide for the porting of numbers and associated calls to the wireless carriers
facilities and the fact that no customers have, to date, requested that their numbers be
ported, the Company believes it is appropriate for this Commission to issue its order to
extend the suspension of the FCC's requirement that it implement local number
portability on May 24, 2004 for additional period of time. As noted, the Company seeks
suspension of the referenced FCC Order as to its Tipanuk exchange to and including
November 24, 2005 and a three year suspension to its other exchanges: Atlanta, Boise
River, Prairie, Shoup, and Three Creek. These suspensions are appropriate because
they will permit the Company to prudently undertake the necessary steps to make its
switches and facilities capable of providing LNP.
13.Commission approval of the relief sought in this Petition would prevent
the Company from being in potential violation of applicable FCC Orders and potentially
avoid increased costs for its Idaho customers. Granting the Company s request will allow
the Company more time to implement the technical requirements for LNP and provide
more time for the FCC to clarify the LNP requirements for rural telephone companies.
To the Company s knowledge, there will be no negative effect on its customers or the
Number Portability Reconsidera#on 12 FCC Rcd at 7302.
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general public that would result from the granting of this request for suspension action.
14.The Company recognizes that the FCC has recently clarified intermodal
LNP obligations.lo The Company also notes that the FCC expressly recognized that in
some circumstances, waiver requests are appropriate. Based on the Company s estimates
for switch replacement and the fact that the Company is not technically able to provide
LNP with its current switches, the Company believes that this Petition meets the
requirements for granting of a waiver.
III.RELIEF REQ UES TED
16.Based on the foregoing, the Company respectfully requests that the
Commission:
Suspend enforcement of the requirements to which this petition
applies with respect to Rural Telephone Company effective
November 24, 2004, pending action by the Commission on this
petition; and
Grant a waiver of the Company s obligation to provide local
number portability until November 24, 2005 for its Tipanuk
exchange rate center switch and a three year suspension to its other
exchanges, the Atlanta, Boise River, Prairie, Shoup, and Three
Creek rate centers; and
Grant such other and further relief as the Commission deems
appropriate.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED this 22nd y of November 200 .
10
In the Matter of Telephone Number Portability, CC Docket No. 95-116, FCC 03-284, (reI.
November 10 2003).
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I HEREBY CERTIFY that on this 22nd day of November 2004, I caused to be served a
true and correct copy of the foregoing by the method indicated below, and addressed to the
following:
Jean Jewell, Secretary
Idaho Public Utilities Commission
472 W. Washington Street
O. Box 83720
Boise, ID 83720-0074
APPLICA TION OF RURAL TELEPHONE COMPANY - 9
S. Mail
Hand Delivered
Overnight Mail
Facsimile
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