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If you need the complete document, download the WordPerfect version or Adobe Acrobat version, if available. ***************************************************************** Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of ) ) Petition of Cincinnati Bell Telephone) CCB/CPD 98-24 Company Under Section 69.4(g)(1)(ii)) of the Commission's Rules for Establishment) of New Service Rate Elements ) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Adopted: August 12, 1998 Released: August 12, 1998 By the Chief, Competitive Pricing Division, Common Carrier Bureau: I. INTRODUCTION 1. In this Memorandum Opinion and Order, we grant the petition of Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company (Cincinnati Bell) seeking under section 69.4(g)(1) of the Commission's rules to establish new service rate elements to provide prearranged and default long-term number portability query services for other carriers that deliver unqueried traffic to Cincinnati Bell for routing and termination. II. BACKGROUND 2. Section 251(b)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, requires all local exchange carriers (LECs) "to provide, to the extent technically feasible, number portability in accordance with requirements prescribed by the Commission." Section 251(e)(2) states that "[t]he cost of establishing telecommunications number administration arrangements and number portability shall be borne by all telecommunications carriers on a competitively neutral basis as determined by the Commission." Carriers intend to provide long-term number portability through a location routing number (LRN) architecture. Each switch is assigned a unique ten-digit LRN. Each customer's telephone number is paired with the LRN for the switch that currently serves that telephone number, and the number and the corresponding LRN are stored in one of seven databases. Neutral third parties, called local number portability administrators, will administer these regional databases. When a customer changes from one LEC to another, the carrier that wins the customer will "port" the customer's number by electronically transmitting the new LRN to the administrator of the relevant regional database. The regional database administrator will then electronically transmit LRN updates to local service management systems operated by carriers or third parties. 3. For a carrier to route an interswitch telephone call to a location where number portability is available, the carrier must determine the LRN for the switch that serves the terminating telephone number of the call. Carriers will accomplish this by querying a service control point to find the LRN of the terminating telephone number. Rather than perform their own querying, carriers may arrange for other carriers or third parties to provide querying and other portability services for them. The Commission has approved the industry's "N minus 1" (N-1) querying protocol, in which the N-1 carrier will be responsible for the query, where "N" is the entity terminating the call. If an N-1 carrier arranges with another entity to perform queries on the carrier's behalf, that other entity may charge the N-1 carrier in accordance with requirements established in the long-term number portability cost recovery proceeding. 4. In 1997, the Competitive Pricing Division (Division) granted petitions by Ameritech and Bell Atlantic to establish new query service rate elements pursuant to section 69.4(g)(1)(i) of the Commissions rules, which states that "[l]ocal exchange carriers subject to price cap regulation . . . may establish one or more switched access rate elements for a new service . . . upon approval of a petition demonstrating that . . . the establishment of the new rate element or elements would be in the public interest." In granting the petitions, the Division found that the rate elements were in the public interest because "the Commission has already determined that carriers may assess charges for performing query services on behalf of N-1 carriers" and "[a]llowing charges will facilitate implementation of number portability . . . by providing a mechanism for LECs to recover the costs associated with prearranged and default queries." The Division subsequently granted petitions by Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (Southwestern Bell), Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific Bell), U S WEST Communications Inc. (U S WEST) and Sprint Local Telephone Companies (Sprint) to establish new query service rate elements pursuant to section 69.4(g)(1)(ii), which allows "[l]ocal exchange carriers subject to price cap regulation [to] establish one or more switched access rate elements for a new service . . . upon approval of a petition demonstrating that . . . another local exchange carrier has previously obtained permission to establish one or more rate elements identical to those proposed in the petition to offer identical service." The Division stated that it had previously granted permission to establish identical rate elements in the Ameritech and Bell Atlantic Order. The Division also held that the carriers must conform their rates, rate structures, regulations, and services offered under these rate elements to any determinations made by the Commission in the long-term number portability cost recovery rulemaking proceeding. III. Cincinnati Bell Petition 5. Cincinnati Bell filed a petition on March 24, 1998 to establish under section 69.4(g)(1)(ii) of the Commission's rules new service rate elements related to the provision of long-term number portability (LNP) query services. Specifically, the petition seeks to implement five rate elements: (1) a prearranged end office service provider number portability (SPNP) query, (2) a prearranged tandem SPNP query, (3) a default end office SPNP query, (4) a default tandem SPNP query, and (5) a SPNP database query charge. Cincinnati Bell asserts that its proposed rate elements are identical to those previously approved for Ameritech and Bell Atlantic and that pursuant to section 69.4(g)(1)(ii), the Commission should approve its petition. 6. We grant Cincinnati Bell's petition under section 69.4(g)(i)(ii) of the Commission's rules. As Cincinnati Bell points out, the Division has already granted other carriers permission to establish identical rate elements. Any subsequent transmittals submitted by Cincinnati Bell to establish tariffed rates under these new rate elements should conform to the Commission's directives in the Third Report and Order regarding cost support for its query service tariffs. IV. ORDERING CLAUSES 7. Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that, pursuant to sections 4(i) and 201-205 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C.  154(i) and 201-205, and authority delegated pursuant to sections 0.91 and 0.291 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR  0.91, 0.291, the petition of Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company seeking under section 69.4(g)(1)(ii) of the Commission's rules to establish new service rate elements that would allow it to charge rates for the provision of long-term number portability query services on behalf of other carriers IS GRANTED subject to the conditions discussed herein. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Jane E. Jackson Chief, Competitive Pricing Division Common Carrier Bureau