The United States Telecom Association (USTA), SBC Communications, BellSouth and Qwest filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to block the UNE-P rules in the FCC’s newly issued Triennial Review Order. The carriers are arguing that the FCC has “thumbed its nose” at existing law and at earlier court orders. They further allege that by asking state commissions to make the critical determination as to whether competition exists is a local market, the FCC has abdicated in its statutory responsibility to set national telecommunications policy.
Specifically, the filing asks the Court to issue a Writ of Mandamus, which would compel the Commission to apply a lawful impairment standard within 45 days, block the imposition of UNE-P for new customers and retain jurisdiction over the matter to ensure future FCC compliance.
Verizon Communications is making a similar case in a separate filing.
Walter B. McCormick, Jr., President and CEO of the USTA, said “By abdicating its statutory responsibility, this FCC has sentenced a vital industry, its investments, its services and its customers to at least three more years of regulatory uncertainty.”http://media.usta.org/pr/2003/pr08282003.html
- Last week, the FCC released the final rules for its Triennial Review Order. The 576-page document provides rules and regulations to clarify the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and address local phone and broadband competition issues, including previous Unbundled Network Elements (UNE) rules that had been overturned last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals. On the issue of unbundled switching for mass market voice services, the FCC ruled that ILECs must provides CLECs with access to local circuit switching in markets where an impairment standard is present. State commissions are asked to apply FCC-defined triggers measuring existing switch deployments in the market. If the states find that there is a competitive impairment they must consider whether it can be cured by requiring unbundled switching on a rolling basis, rather than making unbundled switching available indefinitely.
- Yesterday, Sprint announced that it would use the recent FCC order on UNE-P requirements to significantly expand its portfolio of local, long-distance and nationwide wireless bundles. The Sprint “Complete Sense” services leverage Unbundled Network Elements Platform (UNE-P) facilities from other carriers. Sprint plans to offer the bundles in 36 markets representing 80% of the U.S. population.
- In May 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the FCC’s Local Competition Order and overturned its Line Sharing Order, handing a victory to Verizon Communications and other incumbent LECs. The ruling overturned FCC regulations requiring incumbent local exchange carriers to unbundle the high-frequency spectrum of copper loops to enable competitors to provide DSL services. The Court of Appeals particularly challenged the FCC’s reasons for adopting an undifferentiated national rule for each unbundled element (with narrow exceptions), saying the Commission “completely failed to consider the relevance of competition in broadband services coming from cable (and to a lesser extent satellite).�?