Reuters: Technology News: Top court agrees to hear Sprint appeal over fees

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Top court agrees to hear Sprint appeal over fees Apr 15th 2013, 13:57 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Dish tries to trump SoftBank with $25.5 billion Sprint offer 9:34am EDT Supreme Court indicates it may strike down marriage law Wed, Mar 27 2013 Supreme Court rules for Comcast in class action Wed, Mar 27 2013 Supreme Court wary of broad gay marriage ruling Tue, Mar 26 2013 Supreme Court rules against publisher on copyright protections Tue, Mar 19 2013 Analysis & Opinion S&P: State AGs trying to usurp federal regulation of rating agencies Delaware Supreme Court rebukes Chancery for litigation territorialism People walk past a Sprint store in New York December 17, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Andrew Kelly By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 15, 2013 9:57am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to intervene in a dispute between a Sprint Nextel Corp subsidiary and the utilities regulator in Iowa. Sprint Communications Co declined to pay access charges for calls carried by Iowa Telecom - now Windstream Iowa Communications - that were transmitted over the Internet rather than the traditional phone network. The Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates telecommunications in the state, said Sprint was required to pay. Windstream had billed Sprint for access charges for the Internet calls, known as "voice over Internet protocol" or VoIP calls. Sprint maintains that under the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, VoIP calls are an "information service" not a "telecommunications service" and that therefore the company does not have to pay access charges. The legal question before the high court is whether the dispute should be handled first in Iowa state courts or in federal court Sprint challenged the utilities board decision in federal court, saying that the question of whether the calls should be subject to compensation is a federal law issue, but there are also concurrent proceedings in state court. A federal judge held that the state proceedings should be resolved first. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, saying Sprint's request that the utilities board be prevented from ordering that it pay the fees "interferes with an ongoing state judicial proceeding." Oral arguments and a decision are expected in the court's next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2014. The case is Sprint v. Jacobs, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-815. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Sofina Mirza-Reid) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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