The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy told...
The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy told the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., it planned to weigh in on the side of rural telcos in pending local number portability (LNP) litigation. The National Telecom Co-op Assn. (NTCA) and…
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OPASTCO asked the D.C. Circuit in Dec. to review parts of an FCC order on wireline-to-wireless LNP requirements that affect small, rural LECs. The groups argued the FCC didn’t comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act and Administrative Procedure Act when it adopted an intermodal LNP order in Nov. Wireless LNP went into effect in the top 100 markets Nov. 24. SBA’s chief counsel for advocacy told the court Fri. he planned to file an amicus brief in the case on the side of NTCA and OPASTCO. The groups had argued to the court that in setting the Nov. 24 deadline for carriers to support wireline-to-wireless LNP in the top markets, the FCC didn’t take into account that some 2% carriers also were located in those markets. These are carriers that each serve less than 2% of phone consumers in the U.S. SBA’s plans to file a friend-of-the court brief follow a filing its Office of Advocacy made at the FCC last week, in which it agreed with concerns raised by small wireline carriers about a further notice on LNP. Some wireline companies urged the Commission in comments not to impose costly technical solutions to ease intermodal porting in cases in which there was a mismatch between the rate center associated with a wireless number and the one in which a wireline operator would serve the customer.