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Calling Party Pays is often touted as one of the advantages of GSM digital cellular. After all, most European countries have GSM and most have Calling Party Pays. North America has AMPS (and its digital derivatives) and the Called Party has to pay. However, like many seductive correlations, this one is also false. Israel, is one country that provides a convenient counter-example. While their wireless systems are AMPS-based, they also support Calling Party Pays and have one of the highest levels of usage per customer in the world.
Calling Party Pays is a desirable feature for several reasons. To wireless consumers, it means that they can leave their phone on and not worry about airtime charges every time they answer their phone. To carriers, CPP will result in a rebalancing of traffic from about 80% outgoing calls and 20% incoming, to approximately 50:50 (the experience in most countries with CPP). More importantly, this change in the call ratio is not entirely due to rebalancing of traffic, but significantly due to an increase in incoming calls. Thus, CPP is expected to act as a traffic stimulator in North America, as it has in other countries after its introduction. Currently, all that can be offered in North America are the first-minute-free concept, regional CPP systems (with many restrictions) or calling number identification (which allows manual screening of incoming calls). None of these alternatives are as desirable as unfettered CPP.
The true reason why Calling Party Pays is not the norm in North America is a combination of a high level of competition and the lack of distinct numbering for wireless systems. The high level of competition in both wireless and wireline telecommunications has allowed a huge number of carriers to flourish, and CPP requires a business agreement between every wireless carrier that wishes to support incoming CPP calls and every other carrier that could possibly originate calls. A country with 10 telecommunications companies (such as a country with a PTT and a handful of nationwide wireless licensees) would require less than 50 business agreements, while a country with 100 carriers would require almost 5,000 and a country with 1,000 distinct carriers would require almost 500,000. Another characteristic of a market like the US, with a high level of competition, is a reluctance on the part of the government to mandate participation in a service like CPP that requires multiple carriers to exchange real-time signaling and billing information.
The lack of distinct numbering for wireless phones makes it virtually impossible to identify that a number being dialed is destined for a wireless subscriber (let alone distinguish between wireless subscribers with and without CPP). While many countries have a distinct dialing prefix for each wireless carrier, in North America, wireless carriers share area codes with competing wireless and wireline carriers. All of the CPP trials and commercial systems in North America have so far been based on the allocation of distinct number blocks. However, because the number blocks are generally based on an office code (i.e. digits 4-6 of a 10-digit number), not an area code (i.e. digits 1-3), these systems are restricted to working within an area code, where 7-digit dialing provides an easily recognized prefix. At best, these systems can be extended to all calls originating from a single local exchange carrier. The North American Numbering Plan administrators have shown a great reluctance to assign entire area codes to carriers. And, even if they were willing, it is unlikely that customers would want a separate area code for their wireless phone, which would imply to callers that long distance charges would apply.
It can be argued that it would be possible to develop a nationwide database of CPP prefixes (i.e. 6-digit NPA-NXX codes), although the management of this database would be cumbersome. However, this possibility has been crushed by the advent of Local Number Portability. Some people with CPP numbers will want to port their phone numbers to another carrier (even if they lose the CPP service), but this will not be possible when CPP is based on a distinct dialing prefix.
The CTIA has recognized the challenges of Calling Party Pays, and has written a Standards Requirements Document to address some of the technical issues. The first issue is recognizing the type of calling party, because some cannot be billed. Charges for a CPP call from a home or business line can be added to the monthly bill, but what about calls from a pay phone or a hotel room? In these cases, CPP calls will either have to be denied or some alternate action taken (such as credit card billing). Before the wireless system can decide which action to take, it has to know more information about the calling party than is currently made available. Consequently, the SS7 ISUP call setup protocol must be modified to identify whether CPP charges can be accepted by the originating carrier.
The second major technical issue relates to billing. It is easy for the wireless system to calculate the charges for a CPP call, but the charges are ultimately to be paid by someone who is probably not one of their customers. Consequently, the wireless carrier must have the ability to send billing information to wireline carriers (as well as other wireless carriers). This may be as much a psychological hurdle as anything, as wireless carriers generally use the CIBER format for billing record exchange and wireline carriers use EMI/EMR. Perhaps the relatively new electronic call detail/billing record exchange standard, TIA/EIA/IS-124, will help.
A third issue with a technical component is notification. Callers will probably have to be informed that additional charges will apply to the call. Notification can be as simple as a distinctive tone, or as complex as an interactive dialog, that perhaps also allows alternate billing.
The CTIA has not just addressed the technical issues. That alone would not be enough. They are also encouraging the FCC to act to encourage CPP. They hope that the FCC will preempt state regulation that could result in a variety of incompatible regulations (particularly regarding caller notification), possibly making a nationwide CPP service impossible. The FCC may also need to mandate that all carriers provide the appropriate signaling information to wireless carriers and perform billing and settlement.
Calling Party Pays is associated with high usage of wireless phones in countries that have adopted it. The challenges to developing CPP in the U.S. are much greater than elsewhere, but a concerted effort by carriers could overcome these barriers, resulting in an increase in usage of cellular phones by most customers. This may increase the number of people who are willing to rely on a wireless phone as their primary communications device.
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