Federal Communications Commission 
                            Washington, D.C. 20554                      
                                           
                                         
                                December 10, 2021 
  
 Andrew D. Lipman 
 Counsel to China Telecom (Americas) Corporation 
 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 
 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
 Washington, DC 20004 
 Andrew.Lipman@morganlewis.com 
  
 VIA E-MAIL  
  
 Re:  China Telecom (Americas) Corporation, GN Docket No. 20-109; ITC-214-20010613-00346;  
       ITC-214-20020716-00371; ITC-T/C-20070725-00285 
  
 Dear Mr. Lipman: 
  
 This responds to your letter of December 6, 2021, on behalf of China Telecom (Americas) Corporation 
 (“CTA”), in which you ask the Commission to opine “no later than December 10, 2021,” on your 
 assertion that CTA offers certain services on a private carriage basis.   
  
 The classification of services as common- or private carriage is a fact-based inquiry, governed by 
 longstanding precedents, including the NARUC cases from the D.C. Circuit.  The Commission’s Order on 
 Revocation and Termination (Revocation Order) released on November 2 followed a multi-year, multi-
 phase process that included opportunities for CTA to respond to both the Order to Show Cause and the 
Institution Order.  At no time during that proceeding did CTA raise the question of the extent to which it 
offers specific services on a common-carrier basis, even though those orders specifically discussed the 
types of services that CTA offers.  See, e.g., Institution Order ¶7 & n.24.  Further, the representations and 
characterizations made in the November 19 and December 6 letters do not provide the detailed and 
verifiable factual support needed for the Commission to make any further determination by your 
requested deadline, especially in light of CTA’s failure to timely raise and develop a more comprehensive 
record on this issue—with information uniquely within its own control—prior to issuance of the 
Revocation Order.  Finally, we note that section 214 applies to the offering of telecommunications for a 
fee to the public at large or to such “classes of users” as to be effectively available to the public, 47 
U.S.C. § 153(53), and that minor differences in price or other terms of service do not alone qualify a 
service as private rather than common carrier in nature.  
 
 
 
                                    Sincerely, 
                                     
                                    /s/ Thomas Sullivan 
                                     Thomas Sullivan 
                                     Chief  
                                     International Bureau