United States Fourth Circuit

Judgment for plaintiffs in a dispute arising out of interconnection agreements (ICA) with defendants providing for the mutual exchange of telecommunications traffic is affirmed, where: 1) the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Act) does not require a State commission to interpret and enforce an ICA in the first instance; 2) neither the text of the Act nor prudential considerations compel federal deference to State commissions in the first instance; 3) the district court judge did not violate the recusal statute, and therefore did not abuse his discretion in deciding that neither recusal nor vacatur was appropriate; and 4) the district court did not err in finding that the ICA must be read to apply to VoIP traffic carried over Feature Group D trunks; and 5) the district court correctly concluded that the agreement permitted plaintiffs to identify the origination and termination points of calls using the BTN method, and therefore to bill defendants at the applicable access charges for those calls identified as nonlocal under that method.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/29/2013
• Published 04/29/2013

Judges

• DUNCAN

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel