USTA Calls for End of Reciprocal Compensation

The United States Telecom Association wants to end reciprocal compensation among local exchange carriers for Internet service calls. However, the association says the Association for Local Telecommunications Services and the Competitive Telecommunications Association want to maintain reciprocal compensation.

The compensation is unfair because it allows some competitive local exchange carriers to game the system by collecting fees while providing only one-way access on calls made to the Internet, says United States Telecom Association President Gary Lytle.

Lytle says local phone companies are competing to provide consumers in rural and urban communities with competitive telecommunications services, while many local exchange carriers are using reciprocal compensation as a loophole to help them compete.

"It is our hope that the Federal Communications Commission and Congress will look closely at these reciprocal compensation distortions and develop a policy that will close the reciprocal compensation loophole for good," Lytle says.