Carriers Warn on Revising International CPNI Rules
Wireline and wireless carriers want the FCC to hold off on decisions about foreign access to and storage of customer proprietary network information (CPNI) until it can build a complete record and consider all concerns. Companies and USTelecom have been at the FCC in recent weeks, reminding the agency that it last sought comments on the issue in 2002. “The record should be refreshed,” a Sprint Nextel spokesman said: “The FCC hasn’t sought industry comment for a couple of years. We wanted to express our views it’s best the commission not act on this particular issue before consider industry comments.”
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“This is part of the FCC’s general move to update its CPNI rules,” said a carrier source. “We hope they'll take the time to build a record, given all the changes in recent years… There’s no reason the commission needs to make a decision before the record is refreshed.”
Sprint Nextel’s business has changed much since the FCC began building a record in 1998; it no longer permanently stores CPNI outside the United States, though it does permit “secure foreign access” to domestically held CPNI, it said in an ex parte. “It is important that Sprint Nextel be given the opportunity to again address this matter in the context of comment by other interested parties before the Commission takes any action,” Sprint said: “Sprint Nextel does not believe that an additional round of comment will harm the public because of ample surveillance authority the United States government now possesses to protect the public.”
AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Covad and other telecom companies also want the FCC to seek comment before issuing an order. “Adopting restrictive rules based on an outdated record that does not reflect the significant evolution of the relevant markets in the past several years would clearly be harmful to international commerce and contrary to the public interest,” Covad said in an ex parte filing: “For companies like Covad, onerous restrictions on foreign access to CPNI would potentially eliminate the option of utilizing international call centers for customer support and other important functions. Prohibiting the reasonable utilization of foreign call centers would significantly compromise providers’ ability to compete and effectively meet their customers’ needs.”
Carriers already are threatening to sue the FCC over an April decision requiring them to get customers’ consent before sharing CPNI data with joint venture partners or independent contractors (CD April 4 p1).