Access Charge Reform; Price Cap Performance Review for Local Exchange Carriers; Assessment of Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charges of Public Payphones

In this document the Commission modified its rules so that payphone lines are no longer subject to the PICC (Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge). This action is necessary because the Commission determined that eliminating the PICC for payphone lines is more consistent with section 276 of the Act. To ensure compliance with the anti-subsidization and anti-discrimination provisions of section 276 of the Act, the Commission determined that payphone line rates should be set according to the cost-based new services test. Because the multi-line business PICC is a subsidy from multi-line business lines to residential and single-line business lines whose subscriber line charge (SLC) rates are capped by the Commission's rules, the PICC is not cost-based and so it does not comply with the new services test. The intended effect of this action is to exempt payphones lines from the PICC.