Operator Service Access and Pay Telephone Compensation

Where technically feasible and economically reasonable, the Commission's Third Report and Order requires local exchange carriers (LECs) to make international call blocking services available to non- aggregator business customers as well as to those businesses that qualify as aggregators under the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by The Telephone Operator Consumer Services Improvement Act of 1990. The Commission extended the availability of these services to non- aggregator business customers to assist these customers in reducing losses attributable to international toll fraud. The Commission Order states, however, that LECs will not be required to provide similar international blocking to residential customers, whether to prevent international toll fraud or to control access to international dial-a-porn. Although LECs may elect to offer these services to their residential customers, the Commission declined to require that these services be made available to residences because it was not clear that such a new residential service would be technically feasible and economically reasonable. It was also unclear to what extent such a residential blocking service would be effective in limiting toll fraud and access to dial-a-porn. In addition, the Commission Order requires LECs to file federal tariffs for both billed number screening (BNS) and originating line screening (OLS) ``confirmation screening services'' that allow aggregators to ensure that the proper screening codes are associated with their telephone lines. The Order specifies that the OLS service must deliver a code that discretely identifies private payphones and such other codes as are necessary to identify other categories of aggregator locations. The Order also stresses that it is important for LECs to use uniform codes for their OLS services. The Order further requires LECs to unbundle their OLS ``confirmation services,'' unless they can show either that bundling would not place aggregators at a compet