The FCC this month made 2 enforcement decisions that had legal si...

enforcement activities. Abernathy said there had been uncertainty about the Commission’s authority under Sec. 208 of the Communications Act and it could be resolved only in a complaint proceeding. She said the cases, which involved CLEC complaints against SBC and Verizon (CD April 18 p5, April 24 p8), were significant not because of the merits as much as the fact that “the Commission has now grappled with this difficult jurisdictional question and we unanimously found that Sec. 208 does provide jurisdiction to adjudicate interconnection disputes.” She said the courts would have the final say on the issue but she expected them to agree with the FCC. She emphasized, however, that she thought the agency’s involvement in adjudicating violations of interconnection agreements would be limited. There are 2 reasons for that, she said: (1) Sec. 208 would apply only if the complaining party had adhered to all the requirements of the interconnection agreement, including “change-of-law provisions that govern how FCC decisions will be implemented.” A CLEC can’t file an FCC complaint before going through the contractually prescribed steps, she said. (2) A carrier that invokes arbitration by a state commission and loses has no alternative but to file an appeal in federal district court and can’t “collaterally attack the state action before the FCC in a Sec. 208 complaint.”