National Exchange Carrier Assn. (NECA) said FCC shouldn’t require...

National Exchange Carrier Assn. (NECA) said FCC shouldn’t require ILECs to provide number pooling until they could recover their costs. In Feb. 14 comments on FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (99-200), NECA said number pooling costs should be recovered through existing means, including interstate access charges, and should be available to carriers that aren’t local number portability capable. If FCC decides to subject carriers to number pooling rules before cost recovery is determined, rural carriers should be exempt because “they will be disproportionately affected by the implementation expense of number pooling,” NECA said. National Telephone Coop Assn. (NTCA) said rural LECs that weren’t capable of providing local number portability (LNP) should be exempted from 1,000-number block pooling. NTCA said it opposed FCC’s proposal to require rural LECs to become LNP-capable so they could provide pooling. “Rural LECs have not caused the numbering exhaust problem,” NTCA said. Imposing LNP and pooling on them “would not provide any meaningful extension to the life of the North American Numbering Plan.” Meanwhile, Assn. of Communications Enterprises (ASCENT) urged FCC not to adopt market- based allocation system for numbers, one idea mentioned in agency’s proposal on numbering resources. ASCENT said Commission didn’t have statutory authority to institute such system, whether by auction or otherwise, for giving out numbers. Assn., which represents resellers, said market-based system wouldn’t necessarily reflect cost of numbering administration, and providing numbers only to those willing to pay for them wouldn’t ensure competitive neutrality.