Opinion ID: 215751
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Payphone Operator Compensation

Text: As already noted, Congress wanted to ensure that PSPs receive compensation when calls are completed using their payphones; it directed the FCC to establish a plan to accomplish that. See 47 U.S.C. § 276(b)(1)(A). To effectuate that directive, the FCC promulgated regulations which require completing carriers to compensate PSPs on a per-call basis for calls made on their payphones. See 47 C.F.R. § 64.1300. The regulations also require completing carriers to establish a call tracking system that accurately tracks coinless payphone calls. [10] 47 C.F.R. § 64.1310(a)(1). Completing carriers must undergo audits of their tracking systems to ensure that PSPs are being properly compensated. 47 C.F.R. § 64.1320(a). To assist IXCs and completing carriers in tracking payphone calls, the FCC required LECs to implement Flex-ANI technology at their switches. [11] The dispute in this case is over dial-around calls placed at GCB's payphones, but for which the Flex-ANI digits were not received by U.S. South. While the parties argue over who erred regarding those digits, the district court saw no need to resolve that question because, in its opinion, it did not matter as long as GCB had made a provision for transmitting the Flex-ANI number, even if the number was not transmitted. We do not agree that the FCC's requirements can be read in that way. The FCC imposed a requirement that: LECs transmit payphone-specific coding digits to PSPs, and that PSPs transmit those digits from their payphones to IXCs. The provision of payphone-specific coding digits is a prerequisite to payphone per call compensation payments by IXCs to PSPs for subscriber 800 and access code calls. 1998 Payphone Order, 13 FCC Rcd. 4998, 5006, ¶ 13(footnote reference omitted); see also In re Implementation of the Pay Telephone Reclassification and Compensation Provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Order on Reconsideration, 11 FCC Rcd. 21233, 21265-66, ¶ 64 (1996) (stating that: payphones will be required to transmit specific payphone coding digits and [e]ach payphone must transmit coding digits.). In discussing a waiver, which was being provided by the order, the FCC went on to explain: This limited waiver applies to the requirement that LECs provide payphone-specific coding digits to PSPs, and that PSPs provide coding digits from their payphones before they can receive per-call compensation from IXCs for subscriber 800 and access code calls. 1998 Payphone Order, 13 FCC Rcd. 4998, 5007, ¶ 14. The district court essentially interpreted these provisions to mean that PSPs need only provide for transmission of the Flex-ANI digits, even if the digits were never transmitted into the system. As we see it, that is not a proper reading of the plain language [12] of the order; when one is obligated to transmit something or provide something to another, it is contrary to ordinary usage to say that one need only make provision to do so, even if one does not provide or transmit at all. A natural reading [13] of the words in question leads to a conclusion that the Flex-ANI digits must, indeed, be transmitted in the first place. As dictionary definitions show, [14] that accords with the usual active meaning of the words transmit [15] and provide. [16] That reading also makes sense because the whole purpose of the Flex-ANI system was to implement a practical way for completing carriers to determine that a call was from a PSP. That, in the long run, facilitates the prompt payment of amounts owed to all PSPs. [17] We are mindful of the fact that in the way the industry developed, the Flex-ANI codes are not directly transmitted by the payphones themselves  those phones are not set up to do so. Thus, rather than an LEC transmitting the code digits to the PSP, which then transmits them from the payphones to the IXCs, the PSP will purchase the appropriate lines from the LEC. When a call comes from the payphone, the LEC will attach the digits to that call and then forward it into the system. As we see it, that makes no real difference: whether an LEC transmits the Flex-ANI digits to the payphone, which then transmits them  necessarily back through the LEC  into the system, or whether that circular route is avoided and the LEC adds the Flex-ANI digits when the call comes to it from the payphone, the result is necessarily the same. By the time the call leaves the LEC and enters the system, the Flex-ANI digits will be attached  or should be. And, for good or ill, the FCC has made it clear that it is the duty of the PSP  vis-à-vis the completing carrier  to make sure that happens. We have no reason to believe that the FCC did not understand the industry and its practices when it adopted the 1998 Payphone Order, but it, nevertheless, made it quite clear that the ultimate transmission obligation is upon the PSP, rather than upon the completing carrier. That cannot be discharged by making a provision to transmit; transmission itself is required. [18] Nevertheless, while a PSP is responsible for transmission of the proper information in the first place, its obligation ends there. Others have the duty of tracking and capturing that information, one way or another, [19] once it is sent into the system. See 47 C.F.R. § 64.1310(a)(1). Because the district court did not deem it relevant, it did not make findings about whether the Flex-ANI codes for the calls in question were sent into the system by GCB and its LEC. That question must now be decided. Therefore, we will vacate the district court's judgment and remand for further proceedings. See Zivkovic v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 302 F.3d 1080, 1091 (9th Cir.2002).