Recalcitrant Carriers

The term "recalcitrant carrier" refers to any long distance telecommunications carrier who refuses to fully honor its obligations under the FCC's system of per call compensation to payphone service providers (PSPs), a system also known as dial around compensation. More to the point, this term refers to a carrier who refuses to pay the legally required compensation to PSPs for payphone originated telephone calls that the carrier completes over its telecommunications network.

In practice, the PSPs had used their own lingo to refer to recalcitrant carriers, such as deadbeats, offenders, etc. In 2007, the Supreme Court dubbed this phrase, and we appreciate the Supreme Court's ability to master the English language so well that it has managed to coin a nice sounding phrase to such a nasty situation.

The term emanated from the Metrophones opinion that was reported as Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc. v. Metrophones Telecommunications, Inc., 550 U.S. 45, 127 S. Ct. 1513 (2007). This is the landmark legal precedent setting case that established a payphone service provider's right to sue recalcitrant carriers using the federal courts. From a PSP's point of view, the real importance of this case is that it affords the PSP (or its collection agent) the right to recover attorney's fees from an offending carrier.