DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Utilities Board announced its decision in the “traffic pumping” case brought by Qwest against several local telephone companies operating in rural areas of Iowa. The board ruled in favor of Qwest and found that the traffic pumping operations of these companies were unreasonable practices and violated the local telephone companies’ tariffs. The board also ordered the local telephone companies to issue refunds.

Traffic pumping is when a local telephone company enters into an arrangement with a calling company to provision free services, like chat and adult content services, in order to artificially stimulate traffic volumes on its network.

The local telephone company then bills third-party long distance companies to deliver those calls to the free service provider. The local company and the free service provider share the revenue from the long distance companies. By offering "free" services, these companies literally collect millions of dollars from unaffiliated companies, like Qwest, whose customers think they're calling a free service.