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855 NUMBER RESERVATIONS TO BE QUIETLY RELEASED

New York, NY October 2, 2002 (ICB TOLL FREE NEWS) On September 13th ICB reported that the toll free industry was seeking written permission from the FCC (via industry committee SNAC) to release 855 number reservations.

"The Resp Orgs have been holding customer requests for a lengthy period of time," SNAC reasoned. "Therefore, customer contact information may be outdated in many instances. A customer may have determined, for business and other reasons, that it no longer wants a requested number without notifying the Resp Org. Furthermore, the customer may have gone out of business. Under these scenarios, it would be extremely labor intensive, as well as cost and time prohibitive, for a Resp Org to ensure that it has the proper customer contact information for each request it has received."

While the FCC was advised that "the group would feel more comfortable proceeding with the Commissions’ acknowledgement, given the responsibility of ensuring a first-come, first-serve scenario for all code openings," only a phone call ensued.

The following was communicated to SNAC via email today:

"SNAC Representatives:

As you know, the OBF/SNAC sent a letter on September 19, 2002 to William Maher, Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, regarding the 855 Easily Recognizable Code (ERC), and CC Docket No. 95-155. In response, Diane Griffin, Assistant Bureau Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, phoned Cynthia Benton, SNAC Co-lead. ATIS legal talked with Commission staff this afternoon and confirmed that the Commission will not issue a written response to the letter, or a written communiqué', as requested by the SNAC, explicitly authorizing Resp Orgs to release customer requests for 855 ERC reservations.

Commission staff has indicated, however, that it would be appropriate for companies to release 855 reservations, since the Commission is planning to open a proceeding that will address, among other issues, the first-come, first-serve aspect of the toll-free system. During the discussion with ATIS legal, the Commission staff noted that, during the Forum on Toll-Free Numbers Administration held on March 4, 2002, it was indicated that the Commission will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the toll-free system, most likely sometime this year.

Accordingly, the SNAC should not expect a written response from the Commission authorizing Resp Orgs to release 855 ERC reservations. However, the Commission staff has indicated that such action is appropriate and consistent with its recent position regarding the opening of a proceeding on toll-free matters."

As noted in ICB's earlier article, there is no mention of contacting 855 reservation holders.

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