Friction Mounts Over Phone Access Fees
Twenty years after the breakup of the Bell System, the fees that telephone companies pay to use each other's lines have become a major source of contention for the nation's phone network.
The fees in question, known in the industry as access charges, are invisible to most consumers. But consumers pay for them -- at the rate of about one cent per minute for a typical state-to-state long-distance call.
For long-distance phone companies that must connect to the local phone lines of the caller and the person being called, access charges make up an enormous portion of expenses. They provide significant revenue to the Bell companies that own most of the local phone lines on which calls begin and end. The nation's largest telecommunications carriers collectively spend an estimated $25 billion each year on fees for access to each other's networks.
In the past year, frictions over the fees have exploded.
MCI Inc., the nation's second-largest long-distance company, became the subject of a continuing federal investigation of its attempts to skirt the fees by rerouting phone calls and disguising their origin. MCI denies wrongdoing.
New issues have surfaced over whether the fees should be paid if companies use new technologies, like sending calls via the Internet. AT&T Corp., the nation's largest long-distance company, is being sued for more than $140 million in payments by local phone rivals SBC Communications Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc., which say AT&T evaded the charges by using Internet technology. The Federal Communications Commission recently ruled that the way AT&T used Internet technology didn't exempt it from the fees. AT&T says the suits are without merit and it plans to fight them.
Nearly everyone in the industry agrees that the Byzantine maze of fees and the regulations that govern them have become counterproductive and invite cheating. They also can't cope intelligently with new technologies, such as Internet calling, critics say.
"The system is totally dysfunctional," says Scott Cleland, chief executive of Precursor Group, a research firm in Washington, D.C. "Everybody can game the system and there is every economic incentive to game the fees or cheat on them."
Access charges were created in the 1980s, when the government broke up the AT&T monopoly. At the time, the idea of access charges was that pricey long-distance calls would continue to generate money to help maintain local networks and keep local service affordable for most people.
The charges work far less smoothly now. Long-distance phone calls have become inexpensive for many consumers and flat-rate plans don't charge by the minute. Local phone carriers have proliferated, local companies sell long-distance, and consumers can bypass traditional phone companies either by using wireless, or by signing up for phone service over the Internet or with a cable company.
At a recent conference, AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive David Dorman bemoaned the maddening complexity of the system, which he says has at least seven different access rates. "We remain very frustrated," Mr. Dorman said. The current system and its enormous costs are prompting AT&T to build more of its own networks and look to alternatives like new wireless technologies for bypassing traditional local networks, he adds.
A Verizon Communications Inc. spokesman says that the company agrees that the system needs to be fixed, but the Bells still should be compensated for the use of their networks. "This is frustrating to us, too," says Eric Rabe, the Verizon spokesman. "We need an equitable solution. But that's not immediately apparent."
Negotiations to overhaul access fees are continuing, though the talks have made little progress, and with the fees eating so deeply into their budgets, phone companies for years have tried to find ways to get around or reduce them. The best way to do so usually was through commercial agreements with rivals. But with rules being complicated, phone companies often have found themselves in court battling over what they owe each other.
Against this backdrop, the criminal investigation into MCI's call-routing practices remains active. Rivals have accused the company of "laundering" phone calls -- illegally sending them through third parties to sidestep fees. The company also stood accused of disguising long-distance phone calls that carry hefty fees as local calls with lower charges.
For its part, MCI has made efforts to eliminate even the appearance of any possible wrongdoing. It has canceled contracts with a slew of small telecom companies that rerouted phone traffic from MCI, though the company says it hasn't found any illegal activity among these service providers. MCI also has made peace of sorts with AT&T, one of the companies that made the initial allegations. In February, AT&T agreed to drop a civil suit against MCI related to the dispute.
Even so, the criminal investigation continues. Just last week, a small telecom company in Texas said it had received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in connection with the investigation. The company's president is a former employee of WorldCom, now MCI. During the past year, MCI has handed over multiple boxes of documents to federal investigators, who have also interviewed dozens of telecom industry insiders, including MCI employees.
AT&T isn't facing a criminal investigation regarding routing practices. But lawsuits and regulatory decisions over its handling of access fees could have an effect on its financial performance. AT&T said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month that it has saved $250 million in payments to other phone companies since 2000 by partly routing phone calls via the Internet.
The legal and financial wrangling over the fees shows little sign of abating, though negotiations about overhauling them continue. Phone companies also are struggling with negotiations over wholesale rates that Bell rivals must pay to lease local phone lines. MCI and Qwest recently forged a wholesale agreement, but there has been little other progress. The wholesale rates are charged per line, per month so companies like MCI and AT&T can offer local phone service, while access fees are charged per call to compensate the regional Bell carriers for the cost of completing a call into a business or home.
美国各地有关长途电话接入费的摩擦愈演愈烈
贝尔系(Bell System)分崩离析后，电话公司为使用彼此的线路所支付的费用已经成为引发美国电话行业内争论的一个主要根源。
引起争议的这种费用在该行业被称为接入费，虽然多数消费者看不到这笔费用，但他们实际上却要支付这笔费用，通常的州际长途电话的接入费费率约为每分钟1美分。
对那些必须与呼叫方和被叫方所在地的本地电话线连接的长途电话公司而言，接入费在其开支中所占的比例很大。这为掌握大部分本地电话线路的小贝尔公司带来了大量收入。据估计，美国最大的电信运营商每年为接入彼此的网络而支付的费用总计高达250亿美元。
在过去1年中，因为接入费发生的摩擦愈演愈烈。
几乎每个业内人士都认为，关于接入费的如同拜占庭迷宫般错综复杂的收费方式和监管规定已成为一种消极因素，并导致电话公司之间的互相欺骗，而且不能很好地适应互联网呼叫等新技术带来的需要。
接入费是在二十世纪八十年代产生的，当时美国政府打破了美国电话电报公司(AT&T)的垄断地位，而收取接入费的构想最初是为了使得价格昂贵的长途呼叫业务继续创收，从而有助于维持本地网络，并使本地电话服务对多数人而言仍能负担得起。
但目前这种做法已经无法像当初那样顺畅的运作。
长途电话对许多消费者而言已经不再那么昂贵，而平价计划的收费也不再是按分钟计的。本地电话运营商大量涌现，本地电话公司可以经营长途业务，消费者可以绕过传统的电话公司，使用手机，或者通过互联网或有线传输公司订购电话服务。
有关全面改革接入费的讨论仍在继续，但几乎没有取得什么进展，而且由于接入费对电话公司来说是如此巨大的开支，多年来它们一直试图避免支付或者减少支付这笔费用。做到这一点的最佳方式通常是竞争对手之间达成商业协议。但由于监管规定过于复杂，电话公司不得不常常因为彼此欠费的纠纷而闹上法庭。
