Due Date Announced for Comments in IP Conferencing Provider’s Application for Review
On December 5, 2011, MeetingOne.com Corp. (“MeetingOne”) filed an application for review of a Wireline Competition Bureau (“Bureau”) Order which concluded, among other things, that MeetingOne’s IP audio bridging services are telecommunications services subject to direct Universal Service Fund (“USF”) contributions. Our Legal Alert on the Bureau’s Order regarding MeetingOne can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/v4eMDK.
In a Public Notice released on December 13, 2011, the FCC announced that comments on MeetingOne’s application for review are due by January 12, 2012 and reply comments are due by January 27, 2012.
MeetingOne’s application for review seeks reversal of the Bureau’s Order and raises the following arguments.
- The services in question are enhanced services, not telecommunications services, and thus not subject to USF contributions;
- MeetingOne’s services are exclusively IP, rather than “IP-in-the-Middle”;
- The Bureau’s Order causes disparate treatment for similarly situated service providers;
- Retroactive obligations for MeetingOne are discriminatory and a manifest injustice;
- The Bureau’s Order was both procedurally and substantively prejudicial because it did not respond to many of the arguments raised by MeetingOne and other commenters.
How the FCC addresses MeetingOne’s arguments and the eventual outcome of the proceeding will be of significant importance to the conferencing industry, especially for companies providing similar IP audio bridging services.
