FCC Bureau Dismisses as Untimely Ad Hoc Recon Bid on ILEC Nondominant Treatment
FCC staff dismissed as untimely a business group's petition for reconsideration of a declaratory ruling that granted USTelecom's request for nondominant regulatory treatment of incumbent telco interstate switched access services connecting local phone users to long-distance networks (see 1608240045 and…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
1607150048). The Wireline Bureau said such recon petitions were due within 30 days of a public notice, which in this case was issued July 15, but the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee didn't file its petition until Aug. 22. "Ad Hoc’s Petition expressly seeks reconsideration only of the Declaratory Ruling, arguing that the Commission erred in determining that incumbent LECs are non-dominant in providing interstate switched access and that the Commission should first finalize access rate regulations for toll-free originating access minutes," said Bureau Chief Matt DelNero in an order listed Tuesday in the Daily Digest. "Ad Hoc did not seek reconsideration of the Commission’s Second Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration, which amended the rules to establish a framework for discontinuance of legacy voice services under Section 214 of the Act," he said: "Ad Hoc’s petition predated the publication of these rules in the Federal Register." Ad Hoc recognized the recon petition "was a Hail Mary pass in terms of fixing the disparate treatment of toll-free ('8YY') traffic under the intercarrier compensation rules," emailed the group's counsel Colleen Boothby Tuesday. She said the FCC had acknowledged the problem without resolving it, allowing "the rate disparity between 8YY traffic and other switched traffic" to grow and impose "significant costs" on the group's business customer members. "Ad Hoc has no choice but to continue to look for procedural hooks like the recon petition that shine a light on the issue and hopefully prompt the Commission to address the very real problems it creates," said Boothby, a Levine Blaszak attorney.