The FCC has been working on the issue...

The FCC has been working on the issue of rural call completion, a spokesman said, as Minnesota and other states are considering legislation on the issue (CD March 12 p15). The FCC has taken “major steps to remedy the serious and unacceptable problem of long-distance calls failing to reach rural homes and businesses,” said the spokesman. “Last October, it unanimously adopted new rules [http://fcc.us/1dVCJXR] that provide immediate solutions -- including barring false ring tones for calls that don’t connect -- while ensuring that the agency has the information it needs” (CD Oct 29 p2). The spokesman also noted two recent FCC enforcement actions. On Feb. 20, Windstream agreed to pay $2.5 million and implement a three-year plan to improve its performance to resolve (http://fcc.us/1gnKAye) an FCC investigation into the company’s rural call completion practices (CD Feb 21 p15). A year ago, Level 3 agreed (http://bit.ly/1iFJuNg) to pay nearly $1 million to the U.S. Treasury and meet call completion benchmarks in response to a separate FCC investigation (CD March 13/13 p7). “These actions build on a series of steps taken by the FCC to address this problem in previous years, including clarifying our rules, working closely with state commissions, carriers, industry standards-setting bodies and more,” said the spokesman by email. “Long-term, the FCC’s comprehensive reform of intercarrier compensation is gradually reducing the intercarrier fees that are at the root of the problem, largely eliminating incentives for practices that appear to be undermining the reliability of rural service. We are working hard on every front to eliminate this serious problem.” Thursday, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., introduced a bill (CD March 14 p7) addressing rural call completion problems (see separate report above in this issue).