Federal Communications Commission DA 22-833 DA 22-833 Released: August 8, 2022 WIRELINE COMPETITION BUREAU ANNOUNCES THE PROPOSED NORTH AMERICAN NUMBERING PLAN ADMINISTRATION FUND SIZE ESTIMATE AND CONTRIBUTION FACTOR FOR OCTOBER 2022 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 2023 CC Docket No. 92-237 In this Public Notice, the Wireline Competition Bureau announces the proposed North American Numbering Plan (NANP) administration fund size estimate and contribution factor for the fiscal year October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023 (Fiscal Year 2023). Proper funding of NANP administration ensures that consumers will continue to have access to the numbering resources essential to the provision of new services and technologies. A. Calculating the NANP Administration Fund Size Estimate and Contribution Factor Pursuant to its contract with the Commission and section 52.16(a) of the Commission’s rules, the NANP Billing and Collection Agent, Welch LLP (the B&C Agent), is responsible for calculating, assessing, billing, and collecting payments for numbering administration functions, and for distributing funds to the entities that support these functions (for example, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA)). 47 CFR § 52.16(a). Consistent with this function, the B&C Agent annually develops the projected numbering administration costs and fund size estimate for the upcoming fiscal year. The B&C Agent allocates a portion of the funding requirement to all NANP member countries The NANP member countries are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Sint Maarten, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States (including American Samoa, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). 47 CFR § 52.5(c). for overall administration of the NANP, and also accounts for additional numbering administration services provided by the NANPA to certain member countries, such as the United States, For the United States, such additional services include administration of central office codes, thousands-block number pooling, and routing numbers (pseudo-Automatic Numbering Identification numbers). See 47 CFR §§ 52.15, 52.20. and recovers the costs for such additional services from those countries. For the funding required from the United States, section 52.17 of the Commission’s rules requires that all telecommunications carriers in the United States contribute on a competitively neutral basis to pay such costs, 47 CFR § 52.17. For purposes of this rule, the term “telecommunications carrier” or “carrier” includes interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers as that term is defined in section 52.21(h) of the Commission’s rules. 47 CFR § 52.21(h). and the B&C Agent collects such payments directly from U.S. carriers. 47 CFR §§ 52.16, 52.17. Each year the B&C Agent develops a contribution factor for U.S. telecommunications carriers designed to collect the projected United States contribution for the upcoming fiscal year. The Commission’s rules provide that contributions shall be the product of the carriers’ end-user telecommunications revenues for the prior calendar year and the contribution factor, and such contributions shall be no less than $25. 47 CFR § 52.17(a). B. Billing and Collection Agent Projection of the Fund Size Estimate and Contribution Factor On June 16, 2022, the B&C Agent filed a fund size estimate and contribution factor for recovering the cost of NANP Administration for Fiscal Year 2023, in accordance with section 52.16(a) of the Commission’s rules. Letter from Mark Jackson, Partner, Welch LLP, to Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary, FCC, CC Docket No. 92-237 (filed June 16, 2022) (Filing). Prior to this filing with the Commission, the North American Numbering Council reviewed and approved it on June 14, 2022. Id. at 4. The B&C Agent proposes a funding requirement of $8,642,536 for Fiscal Year 2023, and a contribution factor of 0.0000853 for the collection from U.S. carriers. Id. at 4. As detailed in the Filing, the proposed contribution factor is higher than the contribution factor for the prior fiscal year (0.0000535) because of lower surplus carried over from the prior year, and because of a lower projected revenue contribution base for this year. Id. at 4-5. This year’s contingency fund is $1,000,000, the same as last year. Compare id. at 4 with Letter from Mark Jackson, Partner, Welch LLP, to Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary, FCC, CC Docket No. 92-237, at 4 (filed June 29, 2021). The funding requirement contemplates a contribution from U.S. carriers totaling $7,167,225, a contribution from Canada of $150,192, contributions from the other member countries totaling $29,358, and application of a $1,295,761 accumulated surplus anticipated from last year. Filing at 4-5. The minimum funding requirement for NANP activities of $25 per carrier will remain. Id. at 4. Additional detail about the factors considered by the B&C Agent in establishing the fund size estimate, contribution factor, and contingency fund may be found in the B&C Agent’s monthly fund reports. See North American Numbering Plan Fund, Monthly Fund Reports, http://nanpfund.com/monthly-fund-reports (last visited Aug. 8, 2022). C. Effective Date of the Fund Size Estimate and Contribution Factor If the Commission takes no action regarding the proposed fund size estimate and contribution factor within the 14-day period following release of this Public Notice, the fund size estimate and the contribution factor are considered approved by the Commission and become effective for Fiscal Year 2023. See, e.g., Wireline Competition Bureau Announces the Proposed North American Numbering Plan Administration Fund Size Estimate and Contribution Factor for October 2021 Through September 2022, CC Docket No. 92-237, Public Notice, 36 FCC Rcd 12454, 12455 (WCB 2021); Wireline Competition Bureau Announces the Proposed North American Numbering Plan Administration Fund Size Estimate and Contribution Factor for October 2020 Through September 2021, CC Docket No. 92-237, Public Notice, 35 FCC Rcd 8595 (WCB 2020). For further information, contact William Andrle, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau at william.andrle @fcc.gov. -FCC- 2