CA PUC ADOPTS TELECOM PRICING REFORMS
The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has announced that it will allow the state's four largest wireline phone companies - AT&T (formerly SBC/Pacific Bell), Verizon, SureWest, and Frontier - to price their services more like their voice market competitors. While freezing basic residential prices until Jan. 1, 2009, the Commission said that this decision gives these landline telephone companies great flexibility in how they charge for voice communications services, products, bundles, and promotions.

The decision stems from the PUC's Uniform Regulatory Framework (URF) proceeding, the first major examination of California telephone regulation in 18 years. The PUC conducted an extensive review of market conditions and related federal and state statutes. They concluded in the 264-page decision that market competition now adequately checks landline phone companies' pricing power.

The PUC decision eliminates required state approvals of price changes for all other business and residential rates and services. While landline and competitive local exchange carriers will be required to provide 30-day notice to customers of any proposed price increase, a price increase will go into effect the day after it is filed with the PUC.

The proposal the Commission voted on is available on the PUC's website at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/AGENDA_DECISION/59132.htm.

 

MPSC Grants Comcast license to Provide Basic Local Service
The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) has granted Comcast Phone of Michigan, LLC an amended license to provide basic local exchange service. Noting that it has expanded its cable television service areas to include an additional 230 Michigan communities, Comcast Phone of Michigan, LLC filed an application on June 6 seeking authority to expand the geographic scope of its license. That expansion will include the contiguous municipalities for which the company has acquired or expanded its cable television franchises subsequent to its November 2002 license amendment approved by the MPSC. The MPSC had previously granted the company a temporary license on July 25.

The Commission conditioned the expanded license on compliance with the Commission's anti-slamming procedures, the number portability provisions of the Michigan Telecommunications Act, and the Commission's number reclamation process. The Commission also conditioned the license upon the company providing service to customers within a reasonable time, indicating that a failure to comply may result in revocation of the license or other penalties.

 

FCC REVISED APPLICATION FEE SCHEDULE
Effective Tuesday, October 17, 2006, the application fees charged to licensees and permittees by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will increase to reflect the change in the Consumer Price Index-Urban (CPI-U).

Section 8 of the Communications Act of 1934 requires cost-of-living adjustments to the application fee schedule every two years after October 1, 1991. Increases in the dollar amount of all application fees are based on the percentage change in the CPI-U from the date of enactment of the legislation. The new Schedule of Application Fees reflects the net change in the CPI-U of 7.7 percent, calculated from October 2003 (the last adjustment) through October 2005 in accordance with Section 1.1115 of Part 1 of the Commission's Rules.

Wireless Telecommunications Services application fees that have an associated regulatory fee that must be paid at the time of application filing are noted by an asterisk in the Schedule. Refer to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Fee Filing Guide (dated October 17, 2006) for the total fee that is due for these specific services.

On October 13, 2006, a copy of all fee filing guides for each of the Bureaus/Offices who have feeable services may be obtained on the Internet at www.fcc.gov/fees/appfees.html. For additional information concerning the new Schedule of Section 8 Application Fees, please contact the CORES Helpdesk at 1-877-480-3201 (Option 4).

 

REVENUE LEAKAGE REPORT SHOWS MIXED RESULTS
Subex Azure Ltd., a global vendor of revenue maximization solutions for telecom operators, recently revealed that average revenue leakage across global telecoms operators has increased to 12.1 percent of revenue ($176 billion), compared to 11.6 percent in 2005. However, the 'Operator Attitudes to Revenue Assurance 2006' report, which Subex Azure conducted with the telecoms analyst firm Analysys, shows that North American telecommunications operators have made strides to reduce lost revenues due to billing errors and poor processes. 

Specific findings relevant to the North American market include:

• The percent of total losses declined from 15.5 percent of revenue in 2005 to 11.2 percent in 2006.

• Improvements have been made in most areas, particularly in loss due to least-cost routing and invoicing system errors.

• In only three areas did loss increase: fraud by other operators, external fraud and internal fraud.

The report is based on the responses of more than 100 operators around the world, to investigate levels of revenue loss globally. Fraud was again the single largest area of revenue leakage having increased to 2.9 percent of turnover. There were also increases in revenue leakage due to credit management, incorrect service usage data and interconnect/partner payment errors.

There continues to be significant regional differences with losses across Europe and the Americas reducing while losses have increased in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. When looking at losses by operator type, the larger operators (those with an excess of 5 million subscribers) are typically suffering a lower percentage of revenue loss than their counterparts.

The report revealed that more operators are now trying to reduce revenue leakage at the product planning stage in an effort to fully recoup future revenues. Additionally, revenue assurance is continuing to move up the corporate agenda at many operators, with ultimate responsibility increasingly being at CEO or CFO level -- interestingly, these operators have shown lower levels of revenue leakage.

Danny Dicks, Principal Analyst at Analysys, said: "From this year's research it is clear that operators are more concerned about all sources of revenue leakage. It is apparent that revenue assurance has become much more of a board-level issue."

The full 'Operator Attitudes to Revenue Assurance 2006' report is free to operators. To receive a copy of the report, please go to http://www.subexazure.com/survey2006

 

ATIS IDENTIFIES NEW TECHNICAL PRIORITIES
The ATIS Technology and Operations (TOPS) Council has identified six technical issues that it believes are of critical importance to the communications industry and require priority consideration: Wireless/Wireline Convergence; Service Capabilities Interaction Manager (SCIM); FTTx/Access Optical Networking; Broadband Services; NGN Identity Management; and Intercarrier VoIP Call Routing.

At the TOPS Council's recommendation, the ATIS Board of Directors recently established an Exploratory Group on Convergence (EGC), which will define the requirements, architecture and signaling for wireless/wireline convergence. Chaired by Chris Rice, executive vice president of Network Planning and Engineering for AT&T, the group will address the following items:

• a definition of scope and meaning for convergence;

• an inventory of current standards and requirements activity;

• a gap analysis, to include identification of needed requirements, standards and implementation agreements; and

• identification of critical areas for closer coordination across relevant committees and forums, both internal and external to ATIS.

The ATIS Board of Directors is presently reviewing recommendations of the TOPS Council with regard to addressing the remaining priority topics listed above. Options that are being considered include the creation of TOPS Council Focus Groups or similar venues where technical experts from ATIS Board member companies would formulate industry requirements and define needed standardization activities.

ATIS announced a set of priorities identified by its TOPS Council in 2004, which has led to significant standards development and coordination among ATIS committees and with external standards development organizations. This work is particularly noticeable in the areas of Network Security and VoIP technologies, as well as the more recent TOPS initiatives for IPTV.

 

ADVANCED WIRELESS SERVICES SPECTRUM AUCTION TALLY
The FCC's first auction of Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) spectrum licenses ended on September 18, 2006. A total of 1,122 licenses were offered in the auction, and 104 bidders won 1,087 licenses.

The auction began on August 9, 2006, and closed after 161 rounds of bidding, raising total gross bids of nearly $13.9 billion. The top five winning bidders based on the net amount of their winning bids include: T-Mobile License LLC; Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless; SpectrumCo LLC; MetroPCS AWS, LLC; and Cingular AWS, LLC. More than half of the winning bidders in the auction certified their qualifications as small business entities, enabling them to use bidding credits. The unsold licenses remain held by the FCC and will be made available again in a future auction.

All winning bidders must make down payments on their licenses within ten business days after the release of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau's Public Notice announcing the close of the auction. Winning bidders must also file their long-form applications (FCC Form 601) with the FCC within the same period. The grant of these licenses to the winning bidders is dependent upon the timely submission of their down payments and final payments, and the review of their long-form applications.

The FCC has completed 64 auctions in the 13 years since it was granted competitive bidding authority.

 

Yankee Group Sees Web VoIP Services as Threat to Telecom Incumbents
Yankee Group recently announced that web-based VoIP applications are posing a competitive challenge for traditional service providers in their drive to maintain customers. While telcos typically focus their attention on the competition from cable companies and wireless carriers, a new market threat comes from Internet-based voice applications, which offer consumers a compelling service that enables low-cost or free calling across international boundaries.

According to the Yankee Group Report, Web Voice Services Challenge the Incumbents in Telecommunications, the build-out of voice services including Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, Microsoft's Windows Live Call and AOL's AIM Phoneline have heightened consumer awareness of VoIP by enabling free calling between PC-to-PC users. However, it is the new and unique contextual applications for voice that will be a draw for the technologically advanced consumer over the next five years and challenge telecom, mobile and cable companies to provide comparable voice services. Yankee Group finds that contextual applications for voice - where users discuss their interactions while gaming, shopping or building content - is the most compelling service that will drive consumers to greater usage of web-based VoIP services. Currently, gaming has the greatest potential for unique web voices for consumers in this arena.

"With a footprint larger than the telcos and cablecos, as well as price points far below premium mobile services, web-based VoIP applications are seen as a disruptive threat for traditional telcos in the industry right now," said Jennifer Simpson, Yankee Group, Consumer Technologies & Services analyst. "One way for telcos and cable voice operators to preserve their legacy voice customers is to build service partnerships with portals to gain some revenue in this emerging market."

Visit http://yankeegroup.com for more information.

 

Tangoe Awarded TEM Patent
Tangoe, Inc., a global provider of enterprise telecommunications expense management (TEM) software and services, announced that it has been issued a U.S. patent for technology used in Telecommunications Expense Management systems and methods. The patent covers core technology and processes relating to the management and control of service provider agreements for voice, data, and wireless resources and their associated costs.

The patented technology underpins Tangoe's Communications Management Platform (CMP) and involves numerous TEM processes including contract management, services provisioning, bill processing, bill auditing, variance alerting, market rates knowledgebase, as well as other related TEM processes.

Additional information about Tangoe products, services, and partners can be found at http://www.tangoe.com/.