26 Del. Admin. Code § 4006-2.0

Current through Register Vol. 28, No. 7, January 1, 2025

Section 4006-2.0 - Deployment of Interim Number Portability

2.1 During the interim period, all local exchange carriers shall provide interim number portability as soon as reasonably possible upon receipt of a specific request from another telecommunications carrier.

2.2 Except as the carriers may agree or the Commission may otherwise order under Rules 2.4 and 2.5, all local exchange carriers shall provide interim number portability during the interim period using Remote Call Forwarding.

2.3 The Commission may waive the requirements of Rules 2.1 and 2.2 for a local exchange carrier which demonstrates that Remote Call Forwarding is not a technically feasible method for interim number portability for that local exchange carrier.

2.4 A local exchange carrier may agree to provide interim number portability to a telecommunications carrier utilizing technically feasible methods other than Remote Call Forwarding on mutually agreeable terms, conditions, and charges. A local exchange carrier providing interim number portability under such an agreement shall offer such non-RCF interim number portability methods to other telecommunications carriers upon the same terms, conditions, and charges.

2.5 Upon petition or upon its own motion, the Commission may require that a local exchange carrier provide interim number portability by a technically feasible method other than Remote Call Forwarding or by a combination of technically feasible methods. The providing carrier shall bear the burden of proving that any requested method is technically infeasible.

2.6 Prices for interim number portability shall be set at a level that takes into account the relative inferior quality of the service provided, its interim nature, and the necessity for the development of a competitive market for local exchange services.

COMMENTS: These rules adopt Remote Call Forwarding as the presumptive method for providing number portability during the interim period, now expected to end by late 1998. Staff believes that RCF is a presently technically feasible means. At the same time, Staff acknowledges that RCF, as a method for number portability, has limitations including:

(1) its failure to support several custom local area signaling services and other vertical features;

(2) the possible degradation of transmission quality;

(3) the existence of limits on the number of calls to customers of the same competing service provider that can be handled at any one time; and

(4) the need to allocate access charges derived from interexchange carriers between the provisioning local exchange carrier and the recipient end-user carrier. Staff also acknowledges the disagreement among the participants in Regulation Docket 46 as to the viability of RCF for large volume end-user customers. Because of these limitations, this section allows carriers to negotiate and agree to other methods for providing portability. The section also allows the Commission, acting upon request or on its own initiative, to explore ordering other methods of portability if circumstances warrant. If carriers do agree to provide interim portability by other non-RCF methods, the local exchange carrier must offer the same methods to other similarly-situated requesting carriers.

26 Del. Admin. Code § 4006-2.0