Neutral Tandem Asks FCC to Require Connection by Verizon Wireless
Neutral Tandem -- which accused Verizon Wireless of being the only major carrier it can’t do business with -- wants the FCC to order Verizon to provide direct connection to its system. Last week, Verizon Wireless asked the FCC to reject the petition. Neutral Tandem wants the Commission to “rescue an actor from the consequences of its choices” and “take the extraordinary step of reinstating a commercial contract… that has lawfully expired,” Verizon said.
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“We allow a VoIP carrier like Comcast or Cablevision to transfer a call to Cingular or in this case, Verizon Wireless,” Rian Wren, CEO of Neutral Tandem, told us Fri. “They tend to go through the tandems of the large phone companies. We provide an alternative to that… This has been a multiyear odyssey for us with Verizon Wireless, trying to secure direct connections to them such that we can provide our service.”
Closely held Neutral Tandem, which offers competitive tandem switching and transit services in 40-plus LATAs, asked the FCC to require Verizon Wireless to establish direct connections to Tandem under its authority in sections 201(a) and 332(c)(1)(B) of the Communications Act. The company said the connections are “necessary or desirable in the public interest” and would “promote network reliability, diversity, and disaster recovery; be economically efficient and result in lower costs to the users of telecommunications service; and will permit Neutral Tandem’s carrier customers to exchange traffic with Verizon Wireless more economically and more reliably.”
Verizon Wireless has been the only wireless carrier to put up a fight, Wren said: “All the other wireless carriers connect to us. The best real example of somebody doing something right is Cingular. Cingular is connecting to us across the country even where they don’t plan to use our service to send traffic, where it’s in-region and they want to use their parent companies’ tandems… Verizon Wireless for some reason has been an outlier.”
Verizon Wireless tried to muddy the issue in responding to the FCC, Wren said. “We filed under 201 a carrier specific case to determine the public interest to allow for a direct termination. It’s not a rulemaking. Verizon Wireless is trying very hard to characterize this as a rulemaking to scare everyone.”
Verizon Wireless last week accused Neutral Tandem of being the one trying to short-circuit the system. “Granting the injunctive relief that Neutral Tandem requests would effectively turn a Section 201(a) proceeding on its head by forcing the responding party into direct connection before, rather than after, the FCC determines that doing so will serve the public interest,” the carrier said.
Giving National Tandem what it asks for would set a bad precedent, Verizon Wireless said. “Tandem’s motion for interim order asks the FCC to take the extraordinary step of reinstating a commercial contract that was negotiated at arms length and that has lawfully expired,” the carrier argued: “Dissatisfied with the deal it cut when it agreed to the contract in the first instance, Neutral Tandem now asks the Commission to impose a new deal on Verizon Wireless that would obligate Verizon Wireless to provide direct connection network arrangements.”