January 12, 2012 - The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) today issued a new consumer tips sheet on rural telephone call completion problems also known as "least cost routing.

For the past several months, rural telephone companies in Michigan - and across the country - have been experiencing call completion problems, and as a result, rural customers can have delayed or dropped calls. 

Because rural areas traditionally are more expensive to serve because of lower population density, some of the rates that rural telephone providers charge other carriers for completing calls are higher than those in urban areas.  Certain providers that route the long distance calls do not want to incur these higher charges and therefore, they either refuse to transport calls on certain rural telephone companies' networks or they route the call in a way to try and minimize the cost. 

"While ‘least cost routing' may be cheaper for the company routing the call, it may also lead to poorer service quality for customers," noted MPSC Chairman John D. Quackenbush.  "The consumer tips sheet issued today provides telephone customers with useful information on this problem and actions to take while these issues are resolved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has regulatory authority over these long-distance telephone service providers.

Rural telephone service providers have reported a 2000 percent increase in call completion problems between April 2010 and March 2011, according to the FCC.

The FCC recently put in place new rules to provide both short and long-term solutions to rural call completion problems, and it is continuing to work on the issue.

The MPSC is an agency within the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

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