VII. Assignment of Proceeding
Loretta M. Lynch is the Assigned Commissioner and Thomas R. Pulsifer is the assigned Administrative Law Judge in this proceeding.
1. Although the FCC has established requirements limiting carriers to a six-month supply of inventory for numbering resources, the FCC has not established any clear and objective method to assure that carriers' actual inventory is, in fact, limited to six-month needs.
2. The establishment of objective guidelines for determining six-month inventory supplies will decrease the volume of stranded telephone numbers, increase available telephone numbers for those carriers truly in need of them, and prevent extra NXX codes from being prematurely opened.
3. Based on actual number utilization experienced by carriers, it is appropriate to establish rules defining six-month inventory needs, forecast methodology, and timing of donations and returns.
4. Historical experience shows that carriers have repeatedly taken numbers from the pool for stocking their inventories in excess of their actual needs.
5. Carriers' stockpiles of surplus numbers are not available to other carriers that may need numbers to serve their own customers.
6. Carriers' hoarding of numbers may create a perception that an area code is about to exhaust its supply of numbers when, in reality, available numbers are merely being allocated inefficiently.
7. With the implementation of the adopted inventory rules in this decision, carriers will still retain the flexibility to increase their inventory to accommodate demand growth of up to 15%.
8. New carriers will not be adversely impacted by the adopted inventory rules, but can obtain thousand-blocks used for "footprint" purposes on the same basis as they already do.
9. Under the Commission's adopted inventory rules, carriers with a legitimate need for additional telephone numbers will still retain flexibility to utilize existing procedures for obtaining such resources as they have in the past.
10. A 15% growth cap provides reasonable discipline in limiting a supplier's inventory of telephone numbers while preserving flexibility to accommodate customer demand.
11. A 15% growth rate cap was applied by the FCC in its directives for evaluating Safety Valve requests.
12. The methodology for determining short-term inventory levels adopted in this decision is straightforward and involves just a few mathematical operations that can be readily input into a database from NRUF data.
1. The inventory rules set forth in Appendix 1 of this order should be adopted to promote more efficient utilization of numbering resources in accordance with Pub. Util. Code § 7943.
2. Carriers that are subject to the rules, as defined in Appendix 1, should be required to implement the adopted inventory rules in accordance with the schedule set forth in the order below.
3. The FCC provided delegated authority to the California Public Utilities Commission to implement various area code conservation and relief planning measures, including authority to change, modify, or depart from industry guidelines. The inventory rules adopted in this order are within the Commission's delegated authority.
4. The FCC's delegation of authority to California was never expressly revoked by any of the FCC's subsequent orders in the Numbering Resource Optimization proceeding regarding national guidelines and procedures for number optimization.
5. The Commission has complied with the FCC's delegated authority by first seeking input from the industry as to what the guidelines should be for a six-month inventory before adopting rules.
6. Because the FCC itself has never adopted any specific rules pertaining to how carrier six-month inventories are to be calculated, the Commission's rules do not conflict with the FCC.
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. The rules governing the determination of six-month inventory levels as set forth in Appendix 1 are hereby adopted.
2. The Appendix Rules set forth in Part 1 shall apply to code or block holders that have acquired and retained public numbering resources within one or more rate centers in California and that have filed at least three Numbering Resource Utilization Forecast (NRUF) Reports.
3. The Appendix Rules set forth in Part 2 shall apply to code or block holders that have acquired and retained public numbering resources within one or more rate centers in California and that have filed only one or two NRUF Reports.
4. The inventory rules shall not apply to new code or block holders that have not yet filed any NRUF Reports.
5. Qualifying carriers shall begin implementing the inventory rules adopted in this order effective with the filing of the next scheduled bi-annual NRUF report that is due on February 1, 2005.
6. Carriers shall calculate their six-month inventory level utilizing the February 1, 2005 NRUF data and donate any excess inventory blocks to the Pooling Administrator based on application of our adopted rules.
7. Any surplus blocks identified through the six-month inventory calculations shall be donated to the pool no later than 10 working days after their filing of the February 1, 2005 NRUF.
8. Every six months thereafter, carriers shall perform an updated calculation of permissible inventory levels as prescribed by the rules in Appendix 1, utilizing updated NRUF data, and make any resulting donations to the pool of excess inventory blocks as defined by the adopted rules herein.
9. Carriers shall be required to maintain records for a period of three years documenting their calculations on a rate-center basis to determine the applicable six-month inventory limits that are permitted pursuant to this order, and such records shall be promptly made available to the Commission Staff for review upon request.
This order is effective today.
Dated _____________________, at San Francisco, California.
Appendix 1
