Public Policy

HyperCube and Public Policy

Technology is changing at a rapid pace, forcing companies that work in areas like telecommunications and computing to constantly evolve to remain competitive.  Regulators are feeling similar pressures as they work to oversee these ever-changing industries.  HyperCube believes in adapting regulatory regimes that enable regulators to work in a way that does not impede market dynamics and encourages innovation. “Smart Regulation” that recognizes the shifting nature of technology will ensure that the government monitors the tech sector in a way that balances the need to protect the public without stifling competition and development.

Competition is vital in ensuring a robust national telecommunications infrastructure.

  • Lowers homeland security risks.
  • Facilitates recovery from natural disasters.
  • Eliminates risk of wide scale single-point-of-failure.
  • Encourages innovation.
  • Lowers prices.
  • Reduces intervals for capacity relief.
  • Provides overflow “relief valve” and reduces congestion in networks.
  • Provides more options for backup routing.
  • Reduces need for costly regulation.
  • Benefits flow through to consumers.

Public Policy Issues at the Forefront:

Access Charge Reform and Intercarrier Compensation

As the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) continues with its examination of various possible access charges and intercarrier compensation reform measures, HyperCube will work to ensure that its needs and those of its customers are addressed.  Every carrier should have a level playing field on which to compete, and intercarrier compensation mechanisms must remain competitively neutral.  Any remaining subsidization should not unfairly favor one form of provider over another.  Likewise no form of technology should be given precedence over another. Furthermore the interrelated issues below must be successfully incorporated into the mix in order to provide a market-driven, technology agnostic ecosystem for the benefit of consumers.

Carrier Obligations to Exchange Traffic

In order to operate, providers must accept obligations in which all calls and communications are exchanged openly with other networks without any sort of favoritism, an established concept known as “Common Carrier” status.  Requiring the exchange of traffic among all Common Carriers is one of the most basic of such obligations.  Without such enforceable obligations, some carriers could band together and block their competitors, to the ultimate detriment of consumers.  And any competitor that could not openly complete calls to and from its customers would eventually cease to exist, lessening competition and eliminating the benefits identified above.  Key interconnection rights are set forth in 47 U.S.C. §§ 201, 251(a), 251(b)(5), 251(c), 251(g), and 252(a), and 47 C.F.R. §§ 51.305, 51.321, and 51.701-51.713.  Those rights must be preserved and enforced, regardless of technological systems being deployed.

Nondiscriminatory Network Interconnection

Competitive communications networks require technology-neutral interconnection arrangements that reflect the fact that multiple providers using different technologies operate in a similar environment. Currently, these arrangements favor traditional providers or a handful of competitors in some sectors.  The ability of all calls to complete across all public networks is a fundamental need of consumers and thereby key to ensuring competition in the communications business.

Self-Help

Common Carriers have an obligation to pay for the services that they receive from other providers.  If they do not pay (a practice known as “self-help”), the whole system can break down and competition suffers.  Self-help is seen by some carriers as a way “out of” arrangements they don’t like, but in reality it is mostly being used by larger carriers to stifle smaller, more innovative carriers who present competing products to the marketplace. The FCC recognized this in its 2001 Seventh Report and Order.  HyperCube is committed to seeking swifter enforcement actions against those who employ self-help tactics and to seeking policy changes that penalize those who participate in self-help.

Access Stimulation (Traffic Pumping)

Access stimulation (also known as “traffic pumping”) is a practice used by some carriers to artificially inflate the volume of calls to certain high-cost areas for the purpose of generating excessive charges to other carriers.   Today’s modern network technologies enable this practice for the purposes of “rate gain.”  Such practices should be abolished.   HyperCube and others must work to minimize such costs to its business and, where such costs are legitimate, must work to ensure their recovery from the responsible customers.  We urge the FCC and others to consider that the only reasons for moving a call from one jurisdiction to another should be for delivery or when a technological solution exists that reduces the overall cost of the call, and not just benefits one carrier or another.