867 traffic stimulation fight now focuses on conference calling

Iristel Inc. has asked for guidance from the CRTC in seeking to comply with a December decision that upheld a 2020 CRTC move to slash the company's long distance call termination rate by 74 per cent, and found that the company had granted itself an undue advantage by allowing the use of 867 numbers by “certain customers based in distant locations.” In a Dec. 17 filing, posted to the regulator's website on Dec. 24, Iristel requested guidance on whether or not conference calling in the 867 number area is still allowable under the CRTC's decision. "Iristel previously took action by cancelling revenue sharing agreements, believing that this would meet the commission’s requirement, only to discover that the commission deemed this insufficient," Iristel wrote. "Iristel finds itself in the unenviable position of having to determine unilaterally what steps it must take to ensure compliance without any guarantee that these steps will be seen as sufficient by the commission in the future." Iristel is asking the commission to clarify if all conference calling in the 867 number area – which mostly covers the North – to all Iristel wholesale customers should be terminated. "If not, what is the appropriate method of determining what is appropriate NPA 867 conference calling traffic, and what is not?" Iristel asked the commission. On Dec. 21, Rogers wrote to the regulator in a heavily-redacted submission explaining that it still believed traffic on Iristel's 867 numbers to be very high and "unjustified" and specifically pointed to Iristel's use of conference calling services. According to the Rogers letter, 95 per cent of the traffic to Iristel's 867 numbers is destined to a unique telephone number belonging to FreeConference.com, a service Rogers points out was specifically mentioned in a previous 2017 CRTC decision in the traffic stimulation issue. "Iristel’s arguments that they do not manage the actions of their wholesale customers, that a single end-user based in Whitehorse requested a conference call TN in the 867 NPA, and that they assist the population in the North," Rogers wrote, "do not excuse or mitigate the economic harm their persistent actions continue to inflict to TSPs." The dispute over traffic stimulation goes all the way back to 2016, when Rogers Communications Inc. accused Iristel of engaging in traffic stimulation, prompting the regulator to order Iristel in December 2017 to cease the use of 867 area code numbers to connect callers to a Toronto-area radio station audio stream. Under CRTC rules, companies must compensate each other if incoming phone traffic to one company from a second company is higher than its outgoing traffic to the second company. The amount of compensation is determined in part by the regulator’s traffic termination rates. In the original complaint, Rogers pointed to an ad by a Toronto-area radio station that allows listeners to call an NWT-area phone number, owned by Iristel. If those customers had unlimited Canada-wide calling, they could “call this number to get the radio service and leave it on for as long as they like without paying any extra. Meanwhile, the local gets a windfall of revenue,” Rogers said. in the 2016 complaint. In Aug. 2018, Telus Corp. and Iristel filed dueling Part 1 applications, with Telus complaining that Iristel’s traffic stimulation had resumed, and Iristel countering that Telus was causing calls from Telus users to Iristel users to fail. In its Dec. 17 letter, Iristel wrote that because it is simply requesting clarification of commission intent, there is no need for a Part 1 process. However, in a Dec. 23 letter to the commission Telus objected to Iristel's proposal, and wrote that the company thought "that Iristel may be asking the commission to issue guidelines without any additional process at all, and may be proposing that other parties not be given an opportunity to file comments." "In the present context, considering the formal nature of the guidance sought by Iristel, the impact on other parties, and the complexity and novelty of the issues, the commission should consider the request through a public process, with an opportunity for other parties to comment," Telus wrote in its Dec. 23 letter. On Dec. 23 the CRTC also wrote to Iristel that it would be launching a full Part 1 proceeding related to the guidelines on conference calling, and would be inviting input from interested parties, with a deadline for interventions of Feb. 7. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca. Update: This story has been updated to include additional information about traffic stimulation

867 traffic stimulation fight now focuses on conference calling

News | 01/04/2022 5:05 pm EST

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