The Lederman letter ? Pure Pierre Politics

Scott Swier, the lawyer defending Native American Telecom (a non-Native American company)?before the state Public Utilities Commission, brought a new player into the fight yesterday. He distributed to the commission a letter from state Sen. Dan Lederman, R-Dakota Dunes, defending NAT. It was a surprise. It also didn?t come with an affidavit. PUC chairman Gary Hanson wouldn?t allow the Lederman letter to be introduced as evidence, largely because the evidence stage?was over. The letter will be filed in the public comments section of the case. Swier seemed impressed, or at least gave the impression that he was impressed, with Lederman?s rank within the Senate Republican caucus as a ?majority whip.? He?s the only legislator who has become involved directly in this case. (And, for what it?s worth, the Lederman letter identifies Lederman as ?the? majority whip. That leads one to wonder who wrote the letter, because he?certainly knows there are two other majority whips, Republican senators Larry Rhoden of Union Center and?Ryan Maher of Isabel.)

Sprint is seeking an order from the PUC barring NAT from doing business in South Dakota. NAT doesn?t have a state certificate of authority. NAT tried to operate under a certificate of authority from the Crow Creek tribal utilities authority.?NAT originally sought a state certificate, then withdrew its application, then applied again later when the court decided the PUC had jurisdiction. Sprint Communications has a three-year old complaint against NAT before the PUC. NAT has engaged in the practice of traffic pumping, by using free conference calling to route calls nationwide into Crow Creek and then charging interstate telecommunications companies for handling the calls.

Lederman made some interesting allegations in the letter including that FreeConferenceCalling.com, based in Long Beach, California,?was considering more operations in South Dakota but now feels it isn?t welcome in South Dakota. NAT also has an operation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and also routes calls through Brown County-based Northern Valley telephone cooperative?s switches. Lederman also points out in his letter that a lot of politicians nationally use free conference calling service. This has been quite a saga, and Lederman?s insertion adds a new twist.

The traffic pumping aka access stimulation relies on a part of the federal and state regulatory schemes that allows telephone providers to charge for long-distance calls terminating in their service territories, with rural telephone providers allowed higher rates. The Federal Communications Commission has new regulations that?rein in the practice. The Sprint case is one of?many in South Dakota and nationally that deal with this practice. The Legislature twice tried to curb the practice and the bills were defeated both times (2008 and 2010). Lederman says in his letter that Free Conferencing ?is clearly not the ?bad guy? its opponents make it out to be. In fact, Free Conferencing is the type of technologically-savvy company that we all state officials should attempt to bring to our South Dakota.?

This entry was posted on April 10, 2013, 5:36 am and is filed under SD Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://my605.com/pierrereview/?p=8379

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