Iconectiv takes the toll-free bidding petition to the Chairman's office
iconectiv (FCC ECFS ex parte) · John T. Nakahata, HWG LLP · source ↗
On August 4, Kathy Timko, Michael Poling and John Malyar of iconectiv, with counsel John Nakahata of HWG, met Danielle Thumann, Senior Counsel to Chairman Carr. The ex parte notice was filed August 6 in WC 20-174, WC 17-192 and CC 95-155.
The ask is procedural and specific. Iconectiv “encourages it to expeditiously progress by setting out a decision to conduct an informal adjudication to select the going-forward toll free numbering Administrator and to seek comment on the critical parameters for service metrics and performance standards that can be included within a Request for Proposal and later initiating the process for a multiyear competitive bidding to select the toll free numbering Administrator. This is the same way that the local number portability Administrator procurement process began in 2011.”
The underlying petition is six years old. Iconectiv filed it June 11, 2020, and the Wireline Competition Bureau sought comment on it that month in DA 20-683, quoting its framing that the current arrangement “is a vestige of a bygone era” standing “in sharp contrast to the pro-competitive, contract-based approach that the Commission has taken with respect to other numbering administrator roles.”
The record was refreshed this year. DA 26-131, released February 6, drew comments from Somos, AT&T, USTelecom, ATIS, TNS, Inteliquent, Invoca, TEOCO and 800 Response. Iconectiv also met Bureau staff on July 1 and filed a longer ex parte on July 6, arguing that competitive bidding “yields three key benefits: price discipline, price stability, and accountability,” while “the dominant carrier tariffing regime for toll free numbering administration, by contrast, provides no enforceable assurance of any of these things.”
Somos holds the role under Somos Tariff F.C.C. No. 1, effective February 15, 2025, issued under the Commission’s 2013 toll-free access codes order. It filed its own ex parte on August 7, the day after iconectiv’s.
Iconectiv is the LNPA — the Bureau confirmed the extension in DA 24-104 — and holds the STI-PA role by appointment of the industry STI-GA rather than the Commission. A single vendor already runs number portability and the STIR/SHAKEN policy administration, and is asking the FCC to open the one major numbering role it does not hold.