Operator Service Access and Payphone Compensation

On April 9, 1992, the Commission adopted a Second Report and Order prescribing an interim mechanism by which competitive payphone owners (``PPOs'') may collect compensation from certain interexchange carriers (``IXCs'') for originating interstate access code calls from their payphones. In the Memorandum Opinion and Order on Reconsideration, adopted August 17, 1993, the Commission substantially affirmed the Second Report and Order, although the Commission modified it in certain respects. Upon further reconsideration the Commission now affirms the Reconsideration Order, making one additional modification and a clarification with the intended effect of facilitating the payment of compensation by IXCs to PPOs. First, the Commission directs each PPO submitting an affidavit as verification of a compensation claim to include evidence that the particular payphone is owned by the PPO seeking compensation, and that the payphone was in working order during the period in question. Second, the Commission clarifies that IXCs to which the customer-owned coin-operated telephone (``COCOT'') lists are provided must pay local exchange carriers (``LECs'') reasonable charges for the costs of generating those lists. Third, the Commission rejects RCI's request that we exempt from compensation obligations those IXCs whose operator services consist of 1-800 and 950-10XX access code calls to preexisting accounts. The Commission also rejects RCI's request that we allow OSPs to remove themselves from the payphone compensation list at any time. Fourth, the Commission reverses our previous decision denying Allnet's request to be removed from the list of OSPs with payphone compensation obligations on the grounds that it is not a provider of ``operator services,'' a defined by the Telephone Operator Consumer Services Improvement Act.