HSY/hl2 2/8/2005
BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Petition of LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS, LLC (U-5941-C) for Arbitration Pursuant to Section 252(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and Applicable State Laws for Rates, Terms and Conditions of Interconnection with SBC Bell Telephone Company dba SBC California and SBC Communications.
Application 04-06-004
(Filed June 1, 2004)
FINAL ARBITRATOR'S REPORT 1
I. Background 2
II. Summary 3
III. Intercarrier Compensation 5
A. IP-Enabled Services Traffic 5
B. ISP-Bound Traffic 14
1. When the ISP is Located in the Local Exchange in
which the Call Originated 152. When the ISP is Located in a Different Exchange from
which the Call Originated 163. When the Call is FX or to a Virtual Number Identified
with the Local Exchange in which the Call Originated 17C. FX Traffic 18
D. Reciprocal Compensation Terms and Conditions 22
E. Other Intercarrier Compensation Issues 25
1. Routing for IP-to-PSTN and PSTN-IP-PSTN Traffic 25
2. Compensation for Test Traffic 27
3. SS7 Call Setup Message and Duty to Provide Call Records 27
4. Dispute Resolution for ISP-Bound Traffic 29
5. Compensation for Unbundled Local Switching Traffic 30
6. Compensation and Billing Information for
intraLATA 800 calls 307. Compensation and Billing Information for
Meet-Point Billing 318. IntraLATA Toll Traffic Compensation 32
9. Originating Carrier Number Records 33
10. Reservation of Rights Concerning Compensation for
ISP-Bound Traffic 34IV. Interconnection Trunking Requirements 36
A. Combining Traffic Types On Local Interconnection Trunks 36
B. Transit Traffic 40
1. Is Transit Traffic Subject to Arbitration? 40
2. What Terms and Conditions Should Apply to
Transit Traffic? 43V. Network Interconnection Method 46
A. Responsibility for Trunk Groups 46
B. "Applicable Law" as Physical Collocation Option 47
VI. Collocation 48
A. State Tariff as Collocation Option 48
B. Collocation of Equipment SBC Believes is Non-Compliant 50
VII. Unbundled Network Elements 52
A. Background 52
B. Discussion 55
VIII. Coordinated Hot Cuts 59
IX. Recording 60
X. Signaling System 7 61
XI. Out Of Exchange Traffic 62
XII. General Terms And Conditions 67
A. Assurance of Payment 67
1. Should Assurance of Payment Requirements be
State-Specific or Interdependent? 672. Time for Determining Satisfactory Credit 68
3. What Constitutes Credit Impairment? 70
4. Prerequisite to Requesting Assurance of Payment 71
5. Reasonableness of Request for Assurance of Payment 72
B. Billing and Payment of Charges 73
1. Under What Circumstances May SBC Disconnect
Services for Nonpayment? 732. What Products and Services May SBC Discontinue
for Level 3's Failure to Pay Undisputed Charges? 733. Should SBC be Permitted to Suspend Acting on New
and Pending Orders on the Day the Billing Party has
Sent a Second Late Payment Notice? 75C. Intervening Law 76
D. Assignment 77
XIII. Definitions 79
A. Access Switches 79
B. Local Switches 79
C. Call Record 81
D. Circuit-Switched 81
E. Declassified/Declassification 81
F. Demarcation Point 82
G. Internet Service Provider 82
H. ISP-Bound Traffic 83
I. Local Interconnection Trunk Groups 84
J. Network Interconnection Methods 85
K. Out of Exchange Traffic 85
L. Section 251(b)(5) Traffic 86
M. Switched Access Service 88
N. FX and VNXX Traffic 89
ORDER 89
I. Background
Level 3 Communications, LLC (Level 3) and Pacific Bell Telephone Company (SBC) exchange telecommunications traffic pursuant to an existing interconnection agreement. Level 3 and SBC disagree as to the date that negotiations for a successor agreement began, but they stipulated that the arbitration window under Section 252(b)(1)1 closed on June 1, 2004. Level 3 filed this application on that date, seeking arbitration of the entirety of the agreement.
On June 25, 2005, the parties entered into an agreement to suspend the arbitration proceedings for approximately one month so that they could attempt to resolve some of the issues in dispute. On June 28, 2004, SBC filed its response to the petition, identifying 317 issues for arbitration.2
On August 16, 2004, the parties filed a partial Joint Matrix of Disputed Issues identifying 55 issues for arbitration. On August 30, 2004, the parties filed a supplemental Joint Matrix of Disputed Issues identifying an additional 43 issues for arbitration. Over a third of the identified disputed issues contain multiple sub-parts. In addition, the parties presented dueling issue statements on 61 of the 98 issues identified.
On September 2, 2004, Level 3 filed testimony in substitution for its original testimony of June 1, 2004. SBC filed responsive testimony on September 20, 2004.
Arbitration hearings were held on October 25 through October 28, 2004. At the October 25 hearing, parties informed the arbitrator they had reached a preliminary resolution of three additional issues. On November 12, parties filed and served a joint revised statement of disputed issues identifying the impact of the three resolved issues on the remaining unresolved issues. On November 12, 2004, the parties filed a further revised matrix of disputed issues indicating that they had resolved nine additional issues. On December 15, 2004, the parties submitted a joint stipulation resolving an additional disputed issue. At that time, 84 issues remained for arbitration.
At the October 28 hearing, the parties agreed to extend the final date for the Commission decision in this proceeding to March 17, 2005, and to the following schedule. The Draft Arbitrator's Report was filed and served on December 22, 2004. Parties filed and served comments on the Draft Arbitrator's Report on January 11, 2005. Parties filed and served reply comments on January 18, 2005. The arbitrator reviewed the comments and took them into account, as appropriate, in finalizing this Report. The Final Arbitrator's Report was filed and served on February 8, 2005. On February 15, 2005, the parties will file an entire interconnection agreement that conforms to the decisions of the Final Arbitrator's Report, with a statement of whether the Commission should adopt or reject the agreement.
1 All references to Sections 251 and 252 are to the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
2 Pursuant to the parties' suspension agreement, the Chief Administrative Law Judge excused SBC California from filing testimony at that time.
