In February 2018, an up and coming VoIP service provider contacted us about performing a USF traffic analysis before their next quarterly filing. With the 'Safe Harbor' rate set at 64.9% and the quarterly contribution factor increasing to an all time high of 19.5%, D3 Unified Communications decided it was time to explore the option of performing a traffic study.
Within 1 week, we had a data sample from D3 and provided a free high level estimate of what their actual PIU would be if we completed the traffic study. Our quick analysis on the data estimated that their actual PIU would be less than half of the 'Safe Harbor' rate of 64.9%. The decision to perform the traffic study became an easy one to make as the savings were very evident.
With the next 499 filing due just weeks away, D3 quickly gathered the 3 months of call detail records (CDRs) required to run the analysis. ATS collected the CDRs, ran the traffic study, statistically validated the results, and generated the final report for D3 in time for their filing. The final report found that their actual PIU was indeed less than half of the safe harbor rate set by the FCC. In fact, in all of the traffic studies we have performed for VoIP and Wireless service providers, we have never found a PIU above, or even close to, the safe harbor rate (knock on wood!).
For us at ATS, it was a nice success story about how well our services scale to large and small carriers as well as how quickly we can process large data sets using the latest technologies. But it's always easy for us to say nice things about ourselves, so this time I'll let our customer do the talking for us...
“As a small, growing company with revenues that would have lead us to lose our de minimus status with the Safe Harbor rate, we quickly decided to do a traffic study before filing our 499-A. Quite surprisingly, Google searches on variations of “VoIP USF traffic study” did not provide us with hundreds of options, so we took a chance on a local company. Our decision to work with Advanced Technologies and Services has proven to be a great one! Their sophisticated data analytics software, combined with in-depth industry knowledge, created a professional traffic study report that we submitted to USAC (which validated that we were still de minimus). Equally as important in our book, ATS scored very high in the customer service department—responsive, patient, informative, and collaborative. We will be contacting Ryan again to help us with our next traffic study.”
-Chuck Daniels, CEO, D3 Unified Communications