CenturyLink, Allies Push VoIP Symmetry Bid Opposed by AT&T, Verizon; Bandwidth Files
Parties continued to dispute the merits of CenturyLink's petition asking the FCC to allow local carriers and VoIP partners to collect higher end-office switching charges in certain cases even if the VoIP providers don't control last-mile facilities. A court reversed…
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a previous VoIP symmetry order. AT&T (here) and Verizon (here) remained opposed, while CenturyLink (here), Teliax (here), and O1 Communications and Peerless Network (here) argued again for granting the petition. Replies were posted Tuesday and Thursday in docket 01-92, responding to initial comments (see 1806190029). Bandwidth weighed in this time, saying the FCC "should accept the Court’s invitation to explain why the call control functions performed by [LEC] together with its [VoIP] partner are specific to end office switches and affirm its 2015 Declaratory Ruling. Because the Court’s Remand questions whether an [IP] switch also should make physical connections between trunks and loops to meet the functional equivalence test, and the [ILECs] suggest reversing the 2015 Declaratory Ruling on that basis alone, the Commission should reiterate the differences between interconnection in TDM and IP networks and explain why it was not and is not necessary to adopt a distinct functional equivalence criterion for 'interconnection.'"