1 Indianapolis, Indiana
February 10, 1998
2 10:00 A.M. (EST)
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5 (Reporter marked document for
6 identification as IURC Staff Report
7 Exhibit No. 1)
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9 JUDGE MUELLER: This is a hearing
10 before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in
11 a cause docketed before the Commission as Cause No.
12 41083, "In the matter of the investigation on the
13 Commission's own motion into the implementation of
14 number portability, pursuant to Section 251(b)(2) of
15 the Communications Act of 1934, as amended."
16 Notice of the time and place of the
17 hearing was given as provided by publications in
18 newspapers in Marion, Lake, Allen, Vanderburgh and
19 Vigo Counties in newspapers of general circulation
20 printed and published in the English language in
21 their respective counties and said publications
22 having been made ten days prior to the date of the
23 hearing. The proofs of publication of these notices
24 have been received by the Commission and are now
25 incorporated into the record of this cause by
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1 reference and placed in the official files of the
2 Commission.
3 Notice has also been given to the
4 Office of the Utility Consumer Counselor and other
5 interested parties.
6 May we have oral appearances for the
7 record beginning -- Mr. Johnson, why don't you have
8 a seat up front?
9 MR. JOHNSON: I kind of like it back
10 here, Your Honor.
11 JUDGE MUELLER: We'll have
12 appearances, and I'm going to go from Mike and work
13 our way around.
14 MR. HUSTON: For AT&T Communications
15 of Indiana, Inc., Michael J. Huston, Baker &
16 Daniels, 300 North Meridian Street, Suite 2700,
17 Indianapolis, Indiana, 46204.
18 MS. STEMEN: On behalf of the
19 Respondent, Ameritech Indiana, Sue E. Stemen, 240
20 North Meridian Street, Room 1826, Indianapolis,
21 46204.
22 MR. SPORLEDER: Dale Sporleder
23 appearing on behalf GTE North, Incorporated and
24 Contel of the South, Inc.
25 MS. SHERWOOD: Appearing on behalf
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1 of the Respondent, Time Warner Communications of
2 Indiana, Inc., Pamela H. Sherwood of the law firm of
3 Lewis & Kappes, 1700 One American Square,
4 Indianapolis.
5 MR. SEAT: On behalf of the Office
6 of the Utility Consumer Counselor, Timothy M. Seat.
7 JUDGE MUELLER: Thank you.
8 MR. JOHNSON: For MCI
9 Telecommunications Corporation, Robert K. Johnson.
10 JUDGE MUELLER: Playing zone
11 defense.
12 MR. JOHNSON: I will move up, Your
13 Honor.
14 JUDGE MUELLER: All right. It'll
15 help me keep track of cross-examination. Thank you
16 all.
17 Before proceeding further, will all
18 those who know themselves to be witnesses in this
19 cause please stand and raise your right hand to be
20 sworn at this time.
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22 (OATH DULY ADMINISTERED TO TWO PEOPLE)
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24 JUDGE MUELLER: Mr. Sporleder, you
25 indicated that as counsel for one of the Co-Chairs,
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1 that you would conduct cross-examination.
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4 DOUG KRUGER, a witness called by the Indiana Utility
5 Regulatory Commission, having been
6 first duly sworn, testified as follows:
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8 QUESTIONS BY JUDGE MUELLER:
9 Q Let me at this time, however, ask you your name.
10 A Doug Kruger.
11 Q Are you the Co-Chairperson who has authored
12 what's been marked as Staff Report Exhibit No. 1?
13 A Yes.
14 JUDGE MUELLER: Okay. Pursuant to
15 IC 8-1-1-5, Sub-section (b), the
16 Staff Report is received -- Staff
17 Report Exhibit No. 1 is received
18 into evidence, and Mr. Kruger is
19 available for cross-examination.
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1 (IURC STAFF REPORT EXHIBIT NO. 1,
2 BEING A DOCUMENT ENTITLED, "NUMBER
3 PORTABILITY TASK FORCE STATUS
4 REPORT, CAUSE NO. 41083, FEBRUARY 2,
5 1998", ADMITTED INTO EVIDENCE. SAID
6 DOCUMENT READS IN THE FOLLOWING
7 WORDS AND FIGURES, TO-WIT:
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1 JUDGE MUELLER: Mr. Sporleder, you
2 may proceed.
3 MR. SPORLEDER: Thank you, Your
4 Honor.
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6 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. DOUG KRUGER,
7 QUESTIONS BY MR. SPORLEDER:
8 Q Mr. Kruger, were you present this morning when I
9 informed the parties of the corrections that
10 needed to be made to Appendix A that was attached
11 to the report?
12 A Yes, sir.
13 Q Did you and your Co-Chairman cause to have the
14 changes made on the official document that's been
15 identified as Staff Exhibit 1?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And are those changes merely as to area codes and
18 some of the prefixes?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And it's your understanding that these were more
21 of the nature of administrative mistakes and not
22 substantive changes?
23 A That's correct.
24 Q Are you also familiar with the Motion that has
25 been distributed to the parties this morning to
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1 exclude certain exchanges from the number
2 portability report --
3 A Yes.
4 Q -- by GTE and Sprint?
5 A Yes, sir.
6 Q Can you explain the circumstances as to why these
7 exchanges should be excluded?
8 A The original filing, and I'm not sure which
9 company actually did the filing, but when the
10 list was sent to them, it had marks next to the
11 ones that were actually the ones that were
12 selected by a CLEC, and the recipient of that
13 document did not realize that those marks were
14 selective sites and thought the whole list was
15 the selective CLEC sites rather than those that
16 were selected.
17 Q Is it your understanding that for the
18 Indianapolis MSAs, the communities or exchanges
19 that were to be included in the study are those
20 in which the CLECs had asked that they be
21 included?
22 A That's correct.
23 Q And the motion indicates the communities for both
24 Sprint and GTE in which no CLEC asked that those
25 communities be included?
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1 A That's correct.
2 Q And so the change, again, is more in the nature
3 of administrative as opposed to substantive, and
4 the committee has now decided to exclude these?
5 A That's correct.
6 Q Are you familiar with the report that you and the
7 witness for Time Warner compiled?
8 A Yes.
9 Q You're prepared to answer questions in your
10 capacity as Co-Chairman of the Task Force on the
11 report?
12 A To the best of my ability.
13 Q I guess I'll do this backwards. What's your
14 experience with GTE?
15 A I've been with GTE in various engineering
16 capacities and project management for 11 years
17 now.
18 Q Do you have any professional training or
19 education?
20 A I have an electrical engineering degree from
21 Michigan State and a Masters of Business
22 Administration from Illinois State University.
23 Q And how long has the group been working on this
24 report that you're sponsoring?
25 A The full report or just the response?
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1 Q From the start, how long has the group been
2 working on this?
3 A I have been involved since October of 1997. I
4 don't know if Ralph -- if he was here from the
5 beginning.
6 MR. SPORLEDER: That's all the
7 questions I have.
8 JUDGE MUELLER: Okay. Anybody want
9 to go in a particular order? Mr.
10 Seat?
11 MR. SEAT: I just have a few
12 questions, Your Honor.
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1 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. DOUG KRUGER,
2 QUESTIONS BY MR. SEAT:
3 Q Good morning, Mr. Kruger.
4 A Good morning.
5 Q Referring your attention, and this brings back
6 old memories, to Staff Report No. 1, which has
7 been admitted into the record in this proceeding,
8 Page 1, Item (c) --
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q -- can you describe the records that GTE will be
11 keeping on long-term number portability?
12 A I really cannot answer that question. The
13 question was asked as to whether we would be
14 tracking costs as part of the local number
15 portability, and as we discussed it, the
16 consensus of the team was that, yes, we will be
17 tracking costs, but no company really came forth
18 with how they were going to track those costs.
19 At this point, we feel that that is definitely
20 something that needs to be looked at in the
21 future.
22 Q Okay. So, it's an idea that you agreed to in
23 concept, but the details still need to be worked
24 out?
25 A That's correct.
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1 Q Do you expect that any of the costs will apply to
2 use by the network of GTE for various products
3 and services other than basic local service?
4 A Can you explain the question a little better,
5 please?
6 Q Sure. The costs, do you think those costs will
7 apply in the network for such services as
8 vertical services, business services and message
9 toll?
10 A I personally don't see that, but, again, the
11 details need to be worked out amongst all the
12 players.
13 Q Is it recognized within the Indiana
14 telecommunications industry that long-term number
15 portability arrangements may serve to delay the
16 exhausted present area codes?
17 A We haven't discussed that issue, but, again, I
18 don't see that happening.
19 Q Are you familiar with the process of number
20 pooling?
21 A I have just a very limited knowledge of that.
22 Q But it's your testimony that you yourself have no
23 knowledge of whether or not --
24 A That's correct.
25 Q Do you have an opinion as to whether or not end
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1 user customers should be expected to pay for the
2 cost of long-term number portability?
3 A I have an opinion, yes, sir.
4 Q What is that opinion?
5 A My opinion is that they should not.
6 Q Okay. Finally, directing your attention to Item
7 G on Pages 2 and 3 of the Staff Report --
8 A Yes, sir.
9 Q -- is it your understanding that the long-term
10 number portability Steering Committee will be
11 recalled to address the cost recovery for
12 ordering and billing forum issues?
13 A The recommendation of the Task Team was that the
14 Steering Committee would be reinstated to look at
15 the OBF issues.
16 Q And when will this be accomplished?
17 A I believe we're going to talk about that at the
18 next meeting which is February 24th. The actual
19 date would be up to the Steering Committee
20 themselves as to when they want to reconvene.
21 Q As Co-Chair, will this be a priority for the
22 Committee?
23 A I'm not sure how that's going to be structured.
24 We've talked about it, and we'll be looking to
25 the Commission Staff for guidance.
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1 One thought was to have the Steering
2 Committee have that as a separate committee.
3 Another thought was to have that
4 underneath this particular committee, and we have
5 not made a decision as to which way we would like
6 to go with that. Will we be in charge of that?
7 I don't know at this point.
8 MR. SEAT: Thank you. That's all
9 the questions I have, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE MUELLER: Any other cross?
11 Okay. Then I'm going to do the
12 clean-up cross.
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1 QUESTIONS BY JUDGE MUELLER:
2 Q Mr. Kruger, just so I'm clear, on Page 1 of the
3 Staff Report, the second paragraph in parentheses
4 on the third line, you make mention of
5 Attachments A and B. Are those actually
6 identified as Appendices A and B?
7 A Yes, sir.
8 Q Same items?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q Okay, good. Your response to Item (a) on Page 1
11 refers to developing a procedure to notify the
12 Commission of outages and interruptions in the
13 provisioning of long-term number portability.
14 Your response seems to be in
15 conflict as I read it. You indicate, "The FCC
16 and IURC have requirements in place for reporting
17 service interruptions. The same requirements
18 should apply on an ongoing basis with respect to
19 LNP without any need for developing additional
20 reporting requirements."
21 Your next sentence, though, says,
22 "Since service interruptions may involve the
23 Number Portability Administration Center or SS7
24 provider, procedures may need to be developed for
25 efficient reporting of service interruptions to
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1 the IURC."
2 Are you drawing a distinction, then,
3 between reporting requirements and developing new
4 procedures?
5 A What we were trying to do there was to draw a
6 distinction between the telephone company and the
7 NPAC, the Number Portability Administration
8 Center. They're a separate entity, and I believe
9 it's Lockheed Martin.
10 Q Concerning Lockheed, have they been named an
11 interim NPAC in Illinois?
12 A They are the number portability administrator for
13 the Ameritech area.
14 Q Okay.
15 A They won the national contract for the Ameritech
16 area, the Bell Atlantic area and a couple of
17 other areas, and Perot won mostly the other
18 western areas.
19 Q So, the procedures which you indicate need to be
20 developed are procedures -- are internal
21 procedures for that administrator alone; is that
22 it?
23 A The feeling was that we had procedures in place
24 for telephone companies to report outages.
25 Whether it was a CLEC or an ILEC, they should
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1 follow those same procedures, but if it was
2 something that had to do with the Number
3 Portability Administration such as their
4 interfaces breaking down, they needed to have
5 some procedure in place to report outages to the
6 Commission that they had caused.
7 Q Okay. Turning to Page 2 -- In response to Item
8 (c), "Tracking total costs and projected costs
9 for deployment of LTNP", the top sentence on Page
10 2 says, "Many of the ILECs and CLECs in this
11 Cause have participated at the FCC and the other
12 states. It would be duplicative to devote
13 resources to address this issue in Indiana prior
14 to receipt of the FCC order."
15 I appreciate the Task Force's
16 conservation of resources and time in not
17 duplicating studies that many of you are
18 participating in on a regional or a national
19 level, but I would like you to identify, you and
20 the other Co-Chair, if you would, those issues
21 that you see as state specific to Indiana that
22 are not presently being addressed by any of those
23 other forums you refer to.
24 A I would have to defer to Ralph on that. I have
25 no personal knowledge of it.
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1 Q Let me perhaps spark some response here. I see
2 that we are providing local service on a flat
3 rate basis. There are states around us, Illinois
4 and perhaps Ohio, that provide local service on a
5 metered basis.
6 Do you see special issues concerning
7 the provision of number portability within EAS
8 areas on those two state borders interfacing a
9 flat rate service provider and a measured service
10 provider?
11 A I think you have the same issues you have today
12 when you look at that. We're doing that in some
13 cases today, I believe. I think the last
14 sentence states that we really didn't come up
15 with any state specific items today.
16 Q Let me ask you this, then: Even though we are
17 addressing this issue in provisioning services
18 currently, if you look at the rating and billing
19 to be accomplished in number portability, won't
20 these two types of services create problems
21 specific to rating and billing for number
22 portability?
23 A Which types of services are you referring to?
24 Q The porting of numbers.
25 A The porting of numbers?
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1 Q Yes.
2 A I guess I don't see it. There are issues out
3 there that need to be resolved, but I'm not
4 familiar enough with what those issues are. My
5 sole involvement with number portability has been
6 with this committee here since November.
7 Q Okay.
8 A I do not have that knowledge, I guess, to answer.
9 Q I appreciate the thrust of this, but was it the
10 Task Force's consensus to defer rating and
11 billing until after the FCC Order?
12 A That's correct; that was the consensus.
13 Q Has the Task Force, to your knowledge, identified
14 independent telephone companies providing EAS
15 service into the affected MSA areas in Indiana?
16 A To the best of my knowledge, we have identified
17 all of the EAS coming into the selected
18 exchanges, and I believe that all companies have
19 done that.
20 Q Have you identified them in the report, or can
21 you give us those telephone companies today?
22 A They are not identified in the report. I don't
23 know that we have that information with us at
24 this point. It's definitely something we could
25 provide in the future, though.
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1 Q Have you decided how the Commission or the Task
2 Force will verify that these independent
3 telephone companies have made provisions either
4 with a third party through contracting or they
5 themselves have provided for making queries to
6 route those calls for LNP?
7 A We have brought up the fact that that needs to
8 happen in the committee meetings. There has been
9 no discussion as to how to force that to happen.
10 Q Yet the deadline for the implementation of the
11 Cincinnati MSA is in May; is that correct?
12 A That's correct.
13 Q Well, I will allow your other Co-Chair, then, to
14 add on any input to those answers.
15 JUDGE MUELLER: I have no further
16 questions at this time. Thank you,
17 Mr. Kruger. You may be excused.
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1 MS. SHERWOOD: Mr. McCray?
2 JUDGE MUELLER: Mr. McCray has been
3 sworn in. He may take the Stand.
4 MS. STEMEN: Your Honor, would any
5 other parties have a chance to ask any questions of
6 Mr. Kruger?
7 JUDGE MUELLER: Let's go through the
8 Co-Chairs first, and then we'll take a recess.
9 MS. STEMEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
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1 RALPH McCRAY, a witness called by the Indiana
2 Utility Regulatory Commission, having
3 been first duly sworn, testified as
4 follows:
5
6
7 QUESTIONS BY JUDGE MUELLER:
8 Q Would you state your name, please?
9 A Ralph McCray. I'm employed by Time Warner
10 Telecom.
11 Q You're the Co-Chairman who has also prepared
12 this -- what's been marked as Staff Exhibit No.
13 1?
14 A Yes, sir, Your Honor.
15 Q And your corrections have also been initialed?
16 A Yes.
17 JUDGE MUELLER: Ms. Sherwood, you
18 may proceed with your examination.
19 MS. SHERWOOD: Thank you, Your
20 Honor.
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1 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. RALPH McCRAY,
2 QUESTIONS BY MS. SHERWOOD:
3 Q Mr. McCray, you're employed by Time Warner
4 Telecommunications?
5 A Yes.
6 Q How long have you been employed by Time Warner
7 Telecommunications?
8 A 21 years.
9 Q How long have you been responsible for local
10 number portability and long-term number
11 portability for Time Warner Telecom?
12 A About 15 months now.
13 Q Are you the individual that's responsible for
14 those issues for the entire company?
15 A Nationwide, yes.
16 Q So, how many other jurisdictions are you
17 responsible for in implementing long-term number
18 portability and local number portability?
19 A I'm program manager for implementing number
20 portability in 18 different MSAs from Honolulu to
21 New York.
22 Q How long have you been involved with the Task
23 Force for Indiana?
24 A Probably since October of last year. I think
25 Doug and I came in about the same time.
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1 Q How many times has the Task Force met prior to
2 compiling the report that's identified as Staff
3 Report No. 1?
4 A I believe three times.
5 Q And have you reviewed the changes and corrections
6 that have been made to Staff Report No. 1 set
7 forth on Appendix A?
8 A Yes.
9 Q And do you concur and agree with those changes
10 that have been made on Appendix A?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Did you have any other changes or corrections?
13 A I don't believe so.
14 Q Have you initialed those changes and corrections
15 that have been set forth on Appendix A?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Mr. McCray, have you had the chance to review GTE
18 and Sprint's Motion to Exclude Exchanges From
19 Number Portability Report?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Do you have any objections to excluding those
22 exchanges identified in that Motion?
23 A No.
24 Q And you're here today to offer testimony as a
25 member of the Indiana Steering Committee;
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1 correct?
2 A The Number Portability Task Force.
3 Q Okay, and you can offer opinions as to the
4 consensus of the group as per the discussions
5 they've had up to this point; correct?
6 A Yes.
7 Q You can also offer testimony as to what other
8 states are discussing in terms of number
9 portability issues; correct?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Okay. You had the opportunity -- You were in the
12 room when ALJ Mueller was asking questions of
13 your Co-Chair; correct?
14 A Yes.
15 Q You had the opportunity to listen to your
16 Co-Chair give answers reflecting clarifications
17 on the report; correct?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Do you recall the question asking about the
20 distinction between developing procedures to
21 notify the Commission of outages and
22 interruptions and the effect that a Number
23 Portability Administration Center would have?
24 A Yes, and the key word is "provisioning." These
25 are outages and interruptions in the provisioning
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1 of LNP. This is not a service outage. This
2 is -- Most of the CLECs and ILECs are dependent
3 upon a vendor such as the NPAC or your SS7
4 provider to provision these services. There are
5 requirements in place for service interruptions,
6 and I guess it's open to the Task Force to -- if
7 it's necessary, to develop some procedures for
8 these provision interruptions.
9 Q So, Mr. McCray, am I correct that what the Task
10 Force was trying to explain here was that the
11 Number Portability Administration Center would be
12 provisioning services to the ILECs or CLECs so
13 that if there was an interruption, it would occur
14 at the NPAC?
15 A Yes, it would either occur at the NPAC level or
16 the SS7 provider which is the vehicle to get to
17 that provisioning center.
18 Q Is it the Task Force's opinion that the NPAC or
19 the SS7 would then follow the procedures that are
20 in place to notify the Commission of outages?
21 A I believe that is the consensus of the Task
22 Force.
23 Q Would it be your understanding as a
24 representative of Time Warner that that would be
25 how you would foresee the service interruptions
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1 to be notified that way?
2 A Yes.
3 Q You were also here when Judge Mueller was asking
4 your Co-Chair about cost recovery issues and the
5 devotion of resources to address state specific
6 issues; correct?
7 A Right. As Doug stated, we've -- I'm not sure how
8 many states he works in, but I myself work in 18
9 different MSAs, and each one of these states are
10 going to have different cost recovery rules, and
11 I think most states are looking for the FCC to
12 have some kind of cost recovery order and then do
13 a true-up, a term that has been going around, as
14 far as doing a true-up on this cost recovery.
15 The problem I see coming up is if I
16 have 18 different cost recovery measures and then
17 I have to do a true-up at a later time, it's
18 going to be a mess, I believe, to track that. I
19 mean, we are talking about all cost recovery
20 monies at this time, and I guess we'll have to
21 see state-by-state, but I really see this as
22 being a problem in the industry.
23 Q Mr. McCray, do you know when you might expect the
24 FCC to issue an order?
25 A No, I don't.
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1 Q You mentioned that Time Warner was tracking costs
2 associated with local number portability and
3 long-term number portability. Have you
4 identified what particular costs Time Warner
5 believes should be included in that?
6 A Yes, we are. We had some hearings this week in
7 Ohio, and we submitted some documentation on what
8 we have spent monies on in the State of Ohio at
9 this time, and that's going to be different in
10 every state.
11 Q Has the Indiana Task Force identified those
12 specific costs that they believe should be
13 included for cost recovery purposes?
14 A Not specifically. I think each company on their
15 own are tracking -- have a tracking mechanism
16 which could be different from all the other CLECs
17 or ILECs.
18 Q Do you expect the costs for CLECs and ILECs to be
19 different?
20 A I would think -- I guess it depends on where your
21 network is at and where you have to go to become
22 SS7 compatible and so on.
23 Q Can you add any additional insight into what
24 state specific issues would need to be addressed
25 by the local number portability Task Force?
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1 JUDGE MUELLER: I'm sorry; I
2 couldn't hear your last question.
3 Would you repeat your question?
4 MS. SHERWOOD: I sure would.
5 Sherwood?
6 Q (Ms. Sherwood Continuing) Mr. McCray, can you add
7 any additional insight into what state specific
8 issues will need to be addressed and identified
9 by the Indiana Task Force?
10 A State specific, I'd say no. I'm not sure.
11 Q The Task Force hasn't discussed it yet?
12 A On what is going to be identified in costs, we
13 haven't really got down to the specific levels of
14 detail on what we believe is cost recoverable. I
15 would think that every company would have their
16 own opinion on that.
17 Q Has the Task Force discussed how Indiana may be
18 different in terms of implementation and costs
19 than any of the other 18 jurisdictions you're
20 working in?
21 A In our last meeting, I did make a comment that in
22 the ICC, the Illinois trial, they were going over
23 some exercises for cost recovery, and they had
24 some recommended cost recovery items. Since we
25 really don't want to be duplicating efforts, we
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1 want to look at the some of the ICC reports on
2 that, and I guess it's going to be state-by-state
3 or company-by-company on how they define those
4 issues.
5 JUDGE MUELLER: Excuse me. You
6 mentioned 18 jurisdictions. I
7 understood the witness to say 18
8 MSAs. Four of those would be
9 Indiana, and you testified to Ohio.
10 What other states are you --
11 WITNESS McCRAY: Time Warner only
12 has one MSA in Indiana, and that's
13 Indianapolis.
14 JUDGE MUELLER: What other states,
15 then?
16 WITNESS McCRAY: Honolulu, San
17 Diego, Tampa, Orlando, New York,
18 Rochester, Albany, Raleigh,
19 Charlotte, Greensboro, San Antonio,
20 Austin, Houston, Cincinnati,
21 Columbus, and I think that's all.
22 JUDGE MUELLER: Thank you.
23 Q (Ms. Sherwood Continuing) So, it wasn't 18
24 jurisdictions but 18 MSAs in terms of looking
25 at --
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1 A Yes, we have -- I have two MSAs in New York and
2 three in North Carolina and two in Ohio and three
3 in Texas, but they're all separate MSAs.
4 JUDGE MUELLER: Thank you.
5 MS. SHERWOOD: I have no further
6 questions. The witness is available
7 for clarification and additional
8 cross-examination by any of the
9 parties.
10 JUDGE MUELLER: Okay. I'm going to
11 allow, Ms. Stemen, your
12 cross-examination of the other
13 Co-Chair after we conclude with Mr.
14 McCray.
15 Who wants to go next on
16 cross-examination?
17 MR. SEAT: I'll be happy to start
18 again.
19 JUDGE MUELLER: Okay.
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1 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. RALPH McCRAY,
2 QUESTIONS BY MR. SEAT:
3 Q Good morning.
4 In Ohio, you described that the
5 costs and the cost tracking was gone into in some
6 detail; is that correct?
7 A We did not give them detail on our cost. What we
8 did is we gave them a figure, a monetary figure,
9 on what Time Warner has put into the State of
10 Ohio up to this time.
11 Q Would it be fair to say that the cost tracking
12 records included Time Warner's investments?
13 A Investments, yes.
14 Q Software costs?
15 A Anywhere from resources and planning to software.
16 Q Operating expenses?
17 A Yes.
18 Q How about expenses paid and to be paid to the
19 limited liability company?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Are you aware -- You heard my questions to Mr.
22 Kruger, did you not?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Are you aware whether long-term number
25 portability arrangements may serve as a delay to
31
1 the exhausted present area codes?
2 A I don't think so.
3 Q You don't think that it will?
4 A It will.
5 Q Okay.
6 MS. SHERWOOD: Mr. McCray, can you
7 just clarify that? Did you mean
8 that you're not aware of that, or
9 you don't think that long-term
10 number portability will aid in the
11 exhaustion of area codes?
12 WITNESS McCRAY: I don't think
13 number portability will exhaust the
14 areas codes.
15 Q I believe my question, though, was: Will it
16 delay the exhausted areas codes?
17 A No. That's my opinion.
18 MR. SEAT: I believe that's all I
19 have, Your Honor.
20 JUDGE MUELLER: Further cross? I'll
21 take my turn, then.
22 Well, let's just take a
23 five-minute break here.
24
25 (HEARING IN RECESS UNTIL 11:00 A.M., SAME DAY)
32
1 Indianapolis, Indiana
February 10, 1998
2 11:00 A.M. (EST)
3
4 JUDGE MUELLER: We're back on the
5 record having concluded our recess.
6 Ms. Stemen has indicated that she
7 does have cross-examination of Mr.
8 McCray, so you may proceed.
9 MS. STEMEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
10
11
12 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. RALPH McCRAY,
13 QUESTIONS BY MS. STEMEN:
14 Q Good morning, Mr. McCray.
15 Could you explain for me what the
16 obligation of the Task Force was with respect to
17 cost recovery for rating, ordering and billing
18 issues?
19 A The Task Force was created to implement LNP and
20 really not to duplicate efforts for billing and
21 rating and cost recovery issues. I think we
22 would like the industry as a whole to have some
23 of these procedures or processes in place, but
24 whether we will define that in the Task Force or
25 not is really unknown at this time.
33
1 Q But, at this point, the Task Force has not
2 addressed those issues?
3 A No.
4 Q Thank you. I believe that your Counsel, Ms.
5 Sherwood, asked you about the NPAC notifying the
6 IURC of any outages in the provisioning of LNP.
7 A Yes.
8 Q Isn't it true that there was no consensus that
9 the NPAC notify the IURC, only that that was one
10 alternative?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Okay. Were there other alternatives discussed in
13 the Task Force Committee?
14 A In regards to provisioning?
15 Q In regards to the procedure for notification of
16 certain provisioning outages.
17 A No.
18 Q Would one available alternative be that the NPAC
19 could notify the carrier that's providing the
20 service and then the carrier could notify the
21 IURC?
22 A That could be an option.
23 Q Okay, and to follow up on my first question about
24 the rating and billing issues that are being
25 addressed by the OBF, would it be an alternative
34
1 that the Steering Committee, the LNP Steering
2 Committee, could address those issues as
3 discussed in the minutes reflected in your
4 report?
5 A Yes, that's what we talked about in our last
6 meeting. There are some other national forums,
7 and the T1S1.6 is a national forum which is
8 recommending procedures for rating and billing,
9 so there are two different national forums that
10 are discussing this item.
11 Q But those issues could be addressed in the
12 Steering Committee as opposed to the Task Force?
13 A Yes, correct.
14 MS. STEMEN: I have no further
15 questions. Thank you, Mr. McCray.
16 JUDGE MUELLER: Any further cross?
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
35
1 QUESTIONS BY JUDGE MUELLER:
2 Q Let me start, Mr. McCray, by asking you a
3 follow-up question about the option for reporting
4 outages by a carrier.
5 You indicated that that was an
6 option; however, I'm concerned about whether that
7 was an option discussed within the Task Force.
8 A No, it wasn't.
9 Q In the course of chairing this Task Force
10 Committee and preparing the report, were you
11 aware of positions taken by various participants
12 that were separate and distinct from the
13 responses that you have given us in your Task
14 Force report?
15 A We had a conference call on the 27th of last
16 month, I believe, with all of the participants
17 within the Task Force, and it was our consensus
18 to interpret the responses on what is documented
19 here, and we just -- we thought in our next
20 meeting, if there was need for more detail, we
21 could provide more detail, but that was the
22 consensus of the entire Task Force in the report
23 that has been forwarded.
24 Q When is your next meeting?
25 A The 24th of February.
36
1 Q I appreciate you only reporting what you can by
2 way of consensus; however, I'm trying to find out
3 if there were separate and distinct positions
4 being taken by ILECs, CLECs or carriers that we
5 haven't heard from here in Indiana.
6 A If there were, they were not brought up in our
7 last conference call.
8 COMMISSIONER KLEIN: You stated
9 awhile ago that you had three
10 meetings.
11 WITNESS McCRAY: Yes.
12 COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Now, are there
13 meetings -- Are these conference
14 calls in addition to meetings, or
15 was that one of the meetings?
16 WITNESS McCRAY: The conference
17 calls are in addition to our
18 meetings.
19 COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Thank you.
20 Q (Judge Mueller Continuing) Let me ask you, Mr.
21 McCray, since we have the benefit of your
22 exposure to other jurisdictions, whether other
23 states have identified categories of costs that
24 are recoverable presumably on an interim basis in
25 billing and allocation for number portability?
37
1 A We have been working with the State of Ohio
2 because they have been asking for some of these
3 same things, and there has not been a consensus
4 from the ILECs to the CLECs on what they believe
5 is recoverable. There was a meeting in Chicago
6 last month that gave a little bit of detail on
7 what they thought should be recoverable, but
8 whether that process is carried on as a national
9 standard, that's not known at this time.
10 Q So, when you testified earlier that the approach
11 taken by other states seems to be in the area of
12 cost recovery, that of truing-up to the FCC
13 Order, you are not aware of any interim cost
14 recovery ordered by other states from which to
15 true-up?
16 A No. Time Warner Telecom is documenting what they
17 think is -- maybe not what they think is cost
18 recoverable but what they have invested to
19 implement long-term number portability.
20 The next question is what of those
21 costs is recoverable, and that needs to be set in
22 a national standard, I believe. It may differ
23 from ILECs to CLECs. I can't answer that at this
24 time.
25 Q To the extent that the Commission is seeking some
38
1 input from the Task Force on state specific
2 issues, was the order of the Commission appended
3 to your report as Appendix B not specific enough
4 about the task or charging specific committees?
5 I get the sense that your Task Force is only
6 concerned with implementation, and yet you did
7 undertake to respond to our question in Item (c)
8 about tracking total costs.
9 A Yes. Our Task Force is in charge of
10 implementation of long-term number portability,
11 and we thought -- We didn't want to duplicate
12 efforts from the Steering Committee since they
13 started some cost recovery discussions, and I
14 believe they talked about some cost recovery
15 issues prior to the Task Force.
16 Q I'm still mystified about why the Steering
17 Committee doesn't respond to our queries. Is it
18 because we addressed it to a Task Force rather
19 than the Steering Committee, if you know?
20 A I have not been involved in the Indiana Steering
21 Committee, so I really don't know what they have
22 done prior to the Task Force.
23 Q Okay. I asked Mr. McCray earlier whether he knew
24 who the independent telephone companies were that
25 provide EAS into the affected MSAs here in
39
1 Indiana, and he couldn't give me the independent
2 companies.
3 Do you know what telephone companies
4 are involved in providing EAS into the affected
5 MSAs here in Indiana?
6 A I don't have a list of those independent
7 companies, no.
8 Q Okay. Is the Task Force where it needs to be in
9 terms of testing?
10 A I believe so. The main topic of our next meeting
11 is to develop a timeline for our testing, and all
12 the parties are -- all the ILECs and CLECs are to
13 bring information to create -- to finish up on
14 that process in our next meeting.
15 Q Without making a judgment about the next hearing,
16 will you and your Co-Chair or your successors, if
17 that were the case, be willing to file ongoing
18 reports of your determinations after these
19 meetings when you do make determinations that are
20 significant?
21 A Significant to implementation, yes.
22 Q That would be appreciated.
23 Mr. McCray, I didn't ask -- I am
24 sorry I didn't ask Mr. Kruger this question
25 earlier, but concerning notification
40
1 requirements, how will LECs be informed of
2 central office prefix numbers being released for
3 porting?
4 A Notification will be done through the LERG.
5 Q What's that stand for?
6 A I'm not sure. It's a data base.
7 MR. SPORLEDER: Mike knows that.
8 A It's a data base. It's where all the ILECs,
9 CLECs, independents or whatever go to get
10 information on NXX exchanges on routing
11 information for the industry.
12 Q How will companies that contract with third
13 parties for queries be notified?
14 A I believe they have that same access if they want
15 it, if I understand the question right.
16 JUDGE MUELLER: I have no -- Just a
17 second. Let's go off the record.
18
19 (Off-the-Record Discussion)
20
21 JUDGE MUELLER: We're back on the
22 record.
23 Q Mr. McCray, would you tell us now what LERG
24 stands for?
25 A I believe it's the Local Exchange Routing Guide,
41
1 and they're handled by the ILECs.
2 Q One last question: Are you and your Co-Chair,
3 Mr. Kruger, going to coordinate the
4 implementation of the Gary, Fort Wayne and
5 Louisville MSAs?
6 A I told the Task Force that I would be willing to
7 participate in Indianapolis, but since I do have
8 so many other MSAs that I'm involved with, I will
9 probably step down after we implement
10 Indianapolis.
11 Q Are there any plans now for those other MSAs to
12 be implemented to be handled by other members of
13 the Task Force?
14 A We haven't talked about that, but that's probably
15 something we could get on our next meeting
16 agenda.
17 Q That being February 24th?
18 A Yes.
19 Q That would be well.
20 A Yes.
21 Q Yes.
22 JUDGE MUELLER: I have no further
23 questions, and you may be excused.
24
25 (WITNESS RALPH McCRAY EXCUSED)
42
1 JUDGE MUELLER: Ms. Stemen, you may
2 call either of the Co-Chairs if you care to.
3 MS. STEMEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 If I could just ask Mr. Kruger a couple of quick
5 questions.
6 JUDGE MUELLER: You may go back to
7 the Witness Stand now. We're going to need to keep
8 that exhibit; that's part of the record now.
9 MS. STEMEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
43
1 DOUG KRUGER, a witness called by the Indiana Utility
2 Regulatory Commission, having been
3 previously duly sworn, resumed the
4 Stand and testified further as follows:
5
6 CROSS-EXAMINATION,
7 QUESTIONS BY MS. STEMEN:
8 Q Mr. Kruger, good morning.
9 A Good morning.
10 Q In your direct examination, you were asked about
11 the Staff Report that was admitted today.
12 A Yes.
13 Q I just had a couple of quick questions. One area
14 of questioning was with regard to the procedure
15 for the NPAC to report outages to the IURC.
16 A Okay.
17 Q There was a discussion in the Task Force about
18 that procedure, was there not?
19 A Yes, there was.
20 Q Was there any discussion that since the ILECs and
21 the CLECs were under the IURC's jurisdiction,
22 rules and guidelines, that an alternative to the
23 NPAC notifying the IURC would be for the NPAC to
24 notify the provider and then that provider could
25 notify the IURC?
44
1 A The first I recall hearing that was at this
2 hearing today.
3 Q Is that an alternative procedure?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Okay. What is your understanding of the Task
6 Force's obligation with respect to cost recovery
7 for rating, ordering and billing?
8 A My understanding of the Task Force was that it
9 was an implementation task. We would not be
10 looking at rating and billing issues.
11 Q So, there were no specific recommendations other
12 than the recommendation in your Staff Report that
13 I believe is under "Other issues discussed", Item
14 G, and also the discussion of cost recovery at
15 the bottom of Page 1 and the top of Page 2?
16 Those were the only recommendations that the Task
17 Force had?
18 A That's correct, and in both recommendations, we
19 recommended that it go back to the Steering
20 Committee rather than the implementation Task
21 Force.
22 MS. STEMEN: I have no further
23 questions. Thank you, Your Honor.
24 JUDGE MUELLER: Let me follow up
25 with the same question I had for Mr.
45
1 McCray.
2
3 QUESTIONS BY JUDGE MUELLER:
4 Q To your knowledge, was the Steering Committee
5 going to address our Item (c) here on cost
6 recovery?
7 A Not to my knowledge.
8 Q So, they did not delegate that issue to you or to
9 your committee?
10 A Not that I'm aware of.
11 JUDGE MUELLER: Very well. Thank
12 you. You may be excused.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19 (WITNESS DOUG KRUGER EXCUSED)
20
21
22
23
24
25
46
1 JUDGE MUELLER: Any further
2 testimony? Anyone want to call a witness? No prior
3 filing requirements.
4 We find -- the Bench finds the
5 record of this investigation to be inadequate to
6 make determinations that we think are necessary for
7 the implementation of number portability on a timely
8 basis.
9 The Commission will consider
10 alternatives and will issue an order, so I am not
11 going to continue this hearing to any date certain.
12 We will republish our next hearing.
13 I also will ensure that all carriers
14 are served. I believe the Task Force -- Mr.
15 Sporleder, you gave your service -- all ILECs were
16 served, and Time Warner, who has been made a party
17 to this, was served. I will ensure that all
18 carriers are served for our next hearing, and then
19 they'll narrow the service list down after that
20 point, but if there's nothing further, this cause is
21 now continued until further order of the
22 Commission. Thank you.
23
24
25 (HEARING ADJOURNED)
47