Vonage has been seeking to negotiate direct IP...

Vonage has been seeking to negotiate direct IP interconnection agreements with ILECs, but “those agreements have been hampered by AT&T’s misinterpretation of the Commission’s VoIP access charge rules,” Vonage told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Feb. 11, said an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cn0YNP). “Vonage seeks IP interconnection agreements because the exchange of traffic in IP delivers substantial public interest benefits including cost reduction, improved service quality, and the ability to deliver advanced services such as HD voice.” But “at least one incumbent LEC is unwilling to enter into a direct IP interconnection arrangement unless that arrangement imports the asymmetrical compensation structure that AT&T has argued, incorrectly, was adopted by the Commission” in its 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order, Vonage said. It said it generally prefers to seek bill and keep arrangements when signing direct interconnection agreements with other IP providers. Vonage urged the bureau to take “swift action to enforce the symmetrical compensation provisions” adopted by the FCC, lest an “asymmetrical approach to VoIP intercarrier compensation” give ILECs “perverse incentives to perpetuate legacy TDM technology."