As the draft order recounts, some local exchange carriers (LECs) in areas with high access charges partner with "free" conference call or chat line services that significantly increase the volume of terminating calls to the LECs and thereby dramatically boost the access charges that the LECs can bill to interexchange carriers (IXCs). Access charges are supposed to cover the LECs' costs of providing service. But access stimulation schemes unnecessarily raise the costs for IXCs – as well as their customers – and such schemes unjustly enrich the LECs and their call service partners.
The tactics employed by arbitragers change over time, requiring periodic updates of the rules to curb access stimulation. According to the draft order, certain LECs have inserted Internet Enabled Protocol Service (IPES) Providers into the call pathway for these conference call and call services. Apparently, some LECs have converted traditional competitive LEC numbers into IPES numbers in order to claim that the Commission's 2019 order does not apply to them. The Commission's draft order would address this. If adopted by the Commission, the draft order would provide that "when traffic is delivered to an IPES Provider by a LEC or an Intermediate Access Provider and the terminating-to-originating traffic ratios of the IPES Provider meet or exceed the triggers in the existing Access Stimulation Rules, the IPES Provider will be deemed to be engaged in access stimulation."
The Commission's draft order appears a reasonable and necessary step to halt further gaming of the access charge regime. (For further background, see my July 2022 blog post.)
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