3060-0719.Payphone ANI.SS_October 2024

Quarterly Report of Local Exchange Carriers Listing 3060-0719

Payphone Automatic Number Identifications (ANIs) October 2024

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

This collection is being submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as an extension (no change in the reporting, recordkeeping, and/or third party disclosure requirements) in order to obtain the full three-year clearance. There is no change to the Commission’s estimates.

A. Justification:

1. Quarterly Report of Local Exchange Carriers Listing Payphone Automatic Number Identification (ANIs). The Commission adopted rules and policies governing the payphone industry under section 276(b)(1)(A) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Act), and established “a per call compensation plan to ensure that all payphone service providers are fairly compensated for each and every completed intrastate and interstate call.” Pursuant to this mandate, and as required by section 64.1310(d) of the Commission’s rules, Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) must provide to carriers required to pay compensation pursuant to section 64.1300(a), a quarterly report listing payphone ANIs.¹ Without provision of this report, resolution of disputed ANIs would be rendered very difficult. Carriers would not be able to discern which ANIs pertain to payphones and therefore would not be able to ascertain which dial-around calls were originated by payphones for compensation purposes. There would be no way to guard against possible fraud. Without this collection, lengthy investigations would be necessary to verify claims. The report allows carriers to determine which dial-around calls are made from payphones.

This information collection does not affect individuals or households; thus, there are no impacts under the Privacy Act.

Statutory authority for this information collection is: 47 U.S.C. §§ 151, 154, 201-205, 215, 218, 219, 220, 226, and 276.

2. The information collection must be provided to third parties. The requirement would be used to ensure that LECs and the carriers required to pay compensation pursuant to section 64.1300(a), comply with their obligations under the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

3. Generally, there is no improved technology identified by the Commission to reduce the burden of these collections. However, the Commission does not prohibit the use of improved technology where appropriate. The Order provides for flexibility in choice of arrangements, which the Commission believes will substantially reduce the burden of these collections.

4. There will be no duplication of information. In most instances, the information sought is unique to each respondent.

5. The collection of information will not significantly impact small businesses or other small entities.

6. Failing to collect the information, or collecting it less frequently, would violate the language and/or intent of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to “establish a per call compensation plan to ensure that payphone service providers are fairly compensated for each and every completed intrastate and interstate call.” 47 U.S.C. § 276(b)(1)(A).

7. FCC requirements do not impose any obligations that would require parties to report information to the FCC more often than quarterly, nor will these requirements impose any other special circumstances.

8. Pursuant to 5 C.F.R. § 1320.8, the Commission published a notice in the Federal Register initiating a 60-day comment period on this collection on August 5, 2024 (89 FR 63431). No PRA comments were received.

9. The Commission does not anticipate providing any payment or gift to respondents.

10. The Commission is not requesting respondents to submit confidential information to the Commission. If the Commission requests respondents to submit information which respondents believe is confidential, respondents may request confidential treatment of such information under section 0.459 of the Commission’s rules.

11. There are no questions of a sensitive nature with respect to the information collected.

12. The following represents the estimated hour burden of the collection of information:

Quarterly Report of Local Exchange Carriers Listing Payphone ANIs (Section 276(b)(1)(A)). We note that the hour burden imposed by this requirement is very difficult to quantify. The following is our best estimate.

1. Number of respondents: 400.

2. Frequency of response: Quarterly reporting requirement.

3. Annual burden per respondent: 3.5 hours (avg.) (8 hours for initial submission, 2 hours per subsequent submissions, for average of 3.5 hours per response).

Total annual hour burden of 5,600 hours.

4. Total estimate of annualized cost to respondents for the hour burdens for collection of information: $137,312.

5. Explanation of calculation: We estimate that this obligation will take approximately 5,600 hours at $24.52 per hour (GS 5, Step 5), and will occur quarterly for 400 respondents. 400 (number of respondents) x 4 (number of submissions required) x 3.5 (hours to prepare) x $24.52 = $137,312.

13. The following represents the Commission’s estimate of the annual cost burden to respondents or record keepers resulting from the collection of information: (a) total capital and start-up component: $0.00; (b) total operation and maintenance and purchase of services: $0.00.

14. There is no cost to the Federal government.

15. No change in burden is requested. The estimated burden continues to be 5,600 hours.

16. The Commission does not anticipate that it will publish the results of these collections of information.

17. The Commission does not intend to seek approval not to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collections.

18. There are no exceptions to the Certification Statement.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods:

No statistical methods will be employed.

1 47 U.S.C. § 276(b)(1)(A); 47 C.F.R. § 64.1310(d).