DOJ questions Verizon’s Pennsylvania billing system

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday acknowledged there is sufficient competition in Pennsylvania to justify Verizon Communications’ long-distance application in that state but did not endorse the bid, citing ongoing concerns with Verizon’s electronic billing system.

“Verizon has made significant progress toward opening its local markets in Pennsylvania to competition, but the absence of a commercially-proven electronic billing system was a continuing concern for the department,” said Charles A. James, assistant attorney general, in a statement.

According to an evaluation filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the DOJ said Verizon had filed its application with the commission “without sufficient evidence to show that numerous problems with its wholesale billing systems have been corrected.”

A Verizon spokesman acknowledged the problems, describing them as “mapping issues from our bill to the electronic bill,” but said the carrier has been developing a solution since April and received confirmation from independent auditor Price Waterhouse Coopers in June that the problems had been fixed. He said that the DOJ withheld its endorsement because “we haven’t gone through enough cycles to satisfy [the DOJ]. They said we have to give it more time. But they didn’t say the problems haven’t been fixed.”

The spokesman said the DOJ is generally reticent to give a “ringing endorsement” of a Section 271 application.

“The closest we came was in Connecticut, when the department said that it wouldn’t ‘stand in the way’ of what the FCC decided,” he said. “But we’re pleased with what we did get out of them in Pennsylvania, because they acknowledged the competition in the state. We believe we’re on track.”

Competitors control more than 1 million local phone lines in Pennsylvania, according to Verizon.