Annual Section 43.62 International Traffic and Revenue Report
All international Section 214 holders, entities providing international telecommunications on a common carrier basis, and providers of international voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), whether on a facilities or resold basis, must submit the annual Section 43.62 International Traffic and Revenue Report (Report) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Section 43.62, which became effective earlier this year, identifies an annual July 31 filing date. However, due to unavailability of the FCC’s online filing system to implement the rule change, the Report for calendar year 2014 will be due by September 30, 2015 for this year only.
The FCC adopted changes to the Report requirements in 2013, but is only implementing them this year. The FCC has released a filing manual detailing the reporting requirements, and filers are advised to review the Manual thoroughly when preparing the Report.
Among many other changes to the Report, following are a few key changes that should be noted:
-
Providers of both interconnected VoIP service and one-way VoIP service between the United States and a foreign point are required to file the Report. One-way VoIP providers are described as those that permit users to terminate calls to, but not receive calls originating from, the PSTN or that enable users to receive calls from, but not terminate calls to, the PSTN;
-
U.S. International Service Providers with less than $5 million in revenues from international calling services (“ICS”) resale traffic, and that have no facilities-based ICS revenues for the reporting period, are not required to include resale-ICS on their annual Report. (The FCC also adopted a $5 million annual revenue threshold below which a carrier need not report “miscellaneous services”);
-
Filers must disaggregate world-total ICS traffic and revenue data for specific customer categories and routing arrangements such as residential/mass market, business/government, reoriginated foreign traffic and U.S. resellers;
-
Filers are not required to list destinations to which they provide ICS resale;
-
Filers need report only the total number, in 64kbs-equivalents, of international private line services instead of disaggregating the data into six speed categories and report circuit data for private line service on a world-total basis only;
-
Filers must disaggregate data, for minutes and settlement payments, between calls terminated on fixed line networks and those terminated on mobile networks when the termination rates are different; and
-
Revisions and corrections to a filed Report must be filed by October 31 of the year in which the original Report was filed; however, revisions and corrections are required only for values where the errors exceed one percent (1%).
The FCC’s new online filing system will begin accepting submissions on August 17, 2015. Filers are encouraged to submit their filings early in the filing window to ensure sufficient time to complete and submit the report. Note that some of the Report data are entered directly into the online system and, for other data, filers will download and use template spreadsheets from the filing system. Keep in mind that each filing entity must use the same CORES federal registration number (FRN) when entering its contact information, FCC authorizations and services checklist. We emphasize that the rule establishing the usual July 31 filing date has not changed and filers should assume that next year’s report will be due by July 31, 2016.
[View source.]
