Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, DC ) In the Matter of ) ) WC Docket No Rural Call Completion ) )

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1 Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, DC ) In the Matter of ) ) WC Docket No Rural Call Completion ) ) REPLY COMMENTS OF CENTURYLINK CenturyLink files these Reply Comments in response to the Commission s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the above-captioned docket. 1 As explained more fully below, any measures the Commission adopts to address call completion should be based on reliable data and a realistic understanding of the modern telecommunications marketplace. The Commission should evaluate the comments of others on the basis of how well they adhere to this principle. Certain comments submitted in this proceeding rest on flawed assumptions, indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of the operations and capabilities of telecommunications providers, or impose excessive and unnecessary burdens on service providers. CenturyLink offers these Reply Comments to address those misapprehensions. I. ANY MEASURES THE COMMISSION ADOPTS TO ADDRESS CALL COMPLETION SHOULD BE BASED ON RELIABLE DATA. As noted in its initial comments, CenturyLink is both a facilities-based provider of long distance services and an incumbent local exchange services provider in both rural and non-rural areas. As such, it has a keen interest in ensuring that its long distance customers have their calls terminate as intended and that its local exchange customers, both rural and non-rural, receive the calls that others place to them. CenturyLink has cooperated with, and will continue to cooperate 1 Rural Call Completion, WC Docket No , Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 13-18, FCC Rcd (rel. Feb. 7, 2013), 78 Fed. Reg (Apr. 12, 2013) ( NPRM ).

2 with, the Commission and state regulators as they gather information necessary to assess the extent and cause(s) of the rural call completion issue and to identify the appropriate responses. But to best address these issues, the Commission must ensure that its assessment is based on reliable, meaningful and appropriate data. Mere anecdotes and selective facts not only are unhelpful, they also can detract meaningfully from achieving the Commission s important objectives. For instance, some commenters cite an Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) proceeding regarding call completion difficulties reported by the Rehabilitation Center of Allison, Iowa, as evidence of the need for sweeping new data retention and reporting requirements. 2 But those concerns are misplaced, particularly given the facts that ultimately emerged in that case. In the IUB s proceeding, the complaining parties provided no information about when the alleged call completion difficulties occurred. CenturyLink therefore initiated an investigation and examined relevant call records for a timeframe in proximity to the date on which the complaint was filed. Notably, it found no failed calls between the identified calling and called parties in its records for this period. In fact, its records showed calls with duration i.e., completed calls between the stated telephone numbers. CenturyLink also made test calls between the numbers reporting difficulties, and those test calls completed successfully. CenturyLink has provided detailed responses to the IUB on this matter and continues to cooperate with the IUB s inquiry. Because this proceeding remains open before the IUB, offering it as support for FCC action in this rulemaking proceeding is inappropriate and unhelpful. 2 See Joint Comments of Bay Springs Telephone Company, Inc. et al., at 7-8 ( Independents Comments ) (filed May 13, 2013); Comments of Iowa Network Services, Inc., at 15 (filed May 13, 2013). 2

3 More generally, anecdotal information and disputes over particular complaints are of little value in assessing the broader policies that may be needed to address legitimate call completion concerns. CenturyLink continues to believe that any final rules adopted by the Commission in this proceeding should be based on verifiable facts and findings drawn from well-planned, controlled testing, such as the testing recently carried out by the Nebraska Public Service Commission and the project currently under discussion between the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the rural associations. 3 CenturyLink also strongly supports Comcast s suggestion that the Rural LECs identify test lines for use in testing for call completion. 4 This will allow providers the continuous opportunity to test and address any issues found without impacting customers of any party. II. IF CALL COMPLETION METRICS ARE NEEDED, THEY MUST BE REALISTIC. In a joint filing, 29 rural telephone companies suggest that the Commission s goal in this proceeding should be to restore % reliability to the nation s telecommunications network, which they define to be synonymous with a % call answer rate. 5 This suggestion is both unrealistic and ahistorical, and it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the five 9s reliability standard traditionally has meant in the industry. Historically, % reliability has been the goal for the uptime of the equipment that makes up the telecommunications network. Contrary to the joint commenters implication, this standard has never applied to the call answer rate nor to the traffic that is routed and transported 3 See Comments of CenturyLink, at 7-8 (filed May 13, 2013). Precise rules and procedures for the tests are still being developed, and thus CenturyLink takes no position at this time on the suitability of the methodology ultimately adopted. 4 Comments of Comcast Corporation, at (filed May 13, 2013). 5 Independents Comments at 3. 3

4 by the equipment. In fact, call answer rates are not amenable to such a fixed standard. The call answer rate is affected by myriad independent decisions made by end users, not by their service providers, such as whether to use Caller ID to screen calls, whether to ignore all incoming calls at a particular time, and even whether to be home to answer calls at all. Whether a particular customer chooses to answer a particular call has nothing to do with the reliability of the underlying telecommunications network. At most, changes in call answer rates over time or across geographic boundaries may provide cause for a further, more controlled investigation to determine whether the underlying equipment and routing processes are functioning correctly. However, there is no reason that even a perfectly functioning telecommunications network should expect to see an actual call answer rate as high as % over time. Nor should any provider expect to see the same call answer rates to every destination at all times. Call answer rates in particular areas may be affected by unanticipated events, such as natural disasters, while calling patterns in other areas may naturally produce different call answer rates for reasons that have nothing to do with the operations of telecommunications providers. In addition, it is important to recognize that reliable call completion is in part the result of well-engineered and well-serviced trunk group sizing by all providers in each call path. Under recognized industry best practices, trunk groups are sized by predicting call patterns, especially during the busiest time periods. Providers typically analyze traffic from one hour of the day of the week when the greatest volume of calls is processed, gauging the appropriate capacity for a particular trunk group by applying mathematical queuing theory. Empirical data generally tracks well with theory for large sample sizes, but it displays greater variability when sample sizes are smaller. Actual call volumes to a particular area are 4

5 more likely to depart from providers estimates in areas where the overall call volume is relatively small. Because the volume of attempted calls is lower in rural areas, trunk group sizes in urban areas are larger than trunk group sizes in rural areas. For instance, a small trunk group may have 24 members, while a large trunk group may have 600. Matching trunk group sizes to predicted call volumes is an efficient way to provide quality service to all customers, but smaller trunk groups can be more easily overwhelmed on those relatively rare occasions when traffic to a small trunk group significantly exceeds the norm. As a result, it is possible that the results of reliable call-completion tests may indeed show some differential between urban and rural areas. Whether such a differential, if any, is reasonable would depend on the size and causes of the difference. Until such questions can be assessed on the basis of reliable data, the Commission should not necessarily assume that any urban-rural differential is inappropriate or actionable. III. THE COMMISSION SHOULD SEEK TO PROMOTE CALL COMPLETION MEASURES THAT AVOID IMPOSING UNNECESSARY BURDENS ON SERVICE PROVIDERS. The Commission should focus on adopting measures that help service providers identify and resolve call completion problems without unduly burdening the ability of service providers to actually provision their services. Certain suggestions raised in the initial round of comments would impose substantial and unnecessary burdens on service providers without sufficient corresponding benefit. They should be avoided. For instance, NARUC suggests that the Commission require providers to implement an entirely new system that would play a standby message to callers whenever call completion takes longer than five seconds. 6 Although NARUC does not clearly state which party would be required to monitor the call and play the announcement, only the originating carrier could 6 NARUC Comments at

6 reliably know how long a caller has been waiting, and thus the burdens of this requirement would fall on originating LECs. CenturyLink s legacy switches (and presumably those of others) do not have the ability to trigger this type of mid-call event, and adding that capability likely would require CenturyLink to undertake expensive switch platform development. Newer platforms that may have this capability would still need to arm every call for a possible intercept, utilizing switch memory resources far in excess of CenturyLink s currently available capacity. In short, implementing NARUC s proposal would require replacing many current switching platforms and purchasing additional memory capacity, both at significant capital expense without providing a meaningful commensurate benefit. Speculation aside, there is no evidence in the record that callers would even appreciate receiving such a recorded message. Few businesses in any industry would implement such a remedy without conducting surveys, focus groups, or other market research to determine whether such an approach would even be helpful to customers, let alone how they likely would react. Without some meaningful evidence of usefulness to customers, the proposed standby message offers no benefits that could justify the expense of implementation, particularly when carriers resources could more productively be used to further important efforts in IP interconnections and broadband development. For similar reasons, the Commission should reject proposals to require carriers to capture and store all call messaging, including signaling data. 7 Retaining even six months of Call Detail Records (CDRs), as the NPRM proposed, would require a significant investment in additional storage capacity. Extending this requirement to include all attempts and messaging as well would impose a burden several times greater, as each CDR is associated with multiple 6

7 sometimes numerous messages. Retaining this volume of data for any significant length of time would require both an expansion of CenturyLink s collection arrays at each site as well as significant expansion of its central storage devices. Current call signaling storage devices maintain only single to multiple days (no more than a week) of storage based on the size of the site. To expand these to hold six months of data would require significant cost and effort, as well as additional IT development to manage and enable single call retrieval capabilities. And, again, this significant expense and effort would not even make sense, principally because this level of call detail is not required to identify possible call completion issues, which providers can investigate in more targeted ways once identified. In fact, historical data may not even be relevant or helpful in resolving identified concerns, as call paths may change and cause codes may be inaccurate. The most effective way to resolve call completion issues is not to hoard raw data but rather to engage in targeted, real-time testing in response to reported problems. 8 Finally, the Commission should not follow suggestions from some commenters to require strict compliance with the ATIS Intercarrier Call Completion/Call Termination Handbook. 9 CenturyLink has supported and continues to support the ATIS efforts to work with stakeholders including Rural LECs and regulators to develop strong call completion industry standards and best practices, as embodied in the Handbook. However, it is important to 7 See Comments of ZipDX LLC, at 4 (filed Feb. 22, 2013). 8 One of the virtues of controlled, real-time testing is that it requires all service providers in the chain to validate the operational capabilities of their networks to ensure that accurate information is being generated in the test. 9 See Comments of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, at 15 (filed May 8, 2013) ( NARUC Comments ). 7

8 recognize that the Handbook is a living document intended to be used as a provider s resource, not as a technical or regulatory compliance document. 10 Networks and their underlying technology differ among and within providers infrastructure, and they will continue to evolve. The Handbook is not intended to be applied rigidly across all possible platforms, and requiring strict universal compliance is neither appropriate nor achievable. Rather the document should be used, as was intended, as a resource for providers working to address call completion issues. CONCLUSION The Commission can develop effective and efficient measures for assessing and addressing call completion concerns if its efforts are based on reliable data and an informed assessment of costs and benefits. Such measures would serve both carriers and their customers. Respectfully submitted, CENTURYLINK By: /s/ Jason Topp 1099 New York Avenue, N.W. Suite 250 Washington, DC (651) Jason.Topp@CenturyLink.com Its Attorney June 11, As ATIS describes it, [t]he handbook describes new and existing industry standards and practices to assist in ensuring call-completion and also lists Best Practices that may be useful in addressing call-completion problems. Comments of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, at 3 (filed May 13, 2013). 8