8YY Charge Reform

In this document, the Commission takes definitive steps to address the arbitrage and fraud that have increasingly undermined the system of intercarrier compensation that currently underpins toll free calling. Those steps include transitioning 8YY end office originating charges to bill-and-keep over approximately three years and creating a single charge for 8YY tandem switching and transport services and capping it at a lower, uniform rate. The order caps rates for the database queries necessary to route toll free calls, reduces them to a national uniform rate over approximately three years, and limits such database query charges to one per call. Finally, the Commission allows carriers to use existing mechanisms to recover lost revenue. The measures will reduce the incentives for carriers to engage in 8YY access arbitrage and lower the costs of 8YY services overall.