A three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the FCC’s Triennial Review Order with regard to network unbundling rules. The FCC rules, which were announced in February 2003 but actually issued in August 2003, empowered state public utility commissions as the decision makers on issues regarding UNE-P unbundling and local competition. The Court of Appeals said the FCC erred by not providing unified, federal guidelines and by pushing many FCC decisions to the states. The court also upheld the Triennial Review Order’s exemption provided to incumbent carriers from unbundling for certain fiber-fed loops and for line sharing.
FCC Commissioners Michael Copps, Kevin Martin and Jonathan Adelstein expressed disappointment “in the Court’s decision to eliminate the Commission’s rules requiring incumbent carriers to open their legacy voice networks to competition.” The three Commissioners are seeking a court-ordered stay and plan to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who dissented from the majority’s decision on local telephone competition, hailed the court ruling, predicting it would “spur the development and deployment of vital broadband services to all Americans.” Powell said the FCC now needs “to expeditiously get to work to produce a set of judicially sound rules, once and for all.”http://www.fcc.gov
