NARUC Panels Face Stack Of Telecom Resolutions at Summer Meeting
NARUC was set to open its summer meeting in Austin, Tex., Sun. facing numerous telecom policy resolutions. Committees will review the proposals, which address telecom mergers, federal legislative reform, Lifeline/universal service and cost recovery. Some may fail or see dramatic revision during NARUC’s debate. To become policy, all must be passed by their respective committees, then approved by NARUC’s board.
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.
The first of 4 resolutions before the Telecom Committee would urge the FCC and Justice Dept. to scrutinize the SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI mergers’ impact on retail competition and wholesale pricing, and consider conditions such as divestiture of overlapping facilities and customers to mitigate potential adverse effects. It also would urge U.S. authorities to give states a “meaningful participatory role” in enforcing federal merger conditions. A resolution on legislative reform would urge NARUC to adopt a recent state task force’s “Federalism In Telecom” white paper as the basis for state lobbying on any rewrite or replacement of the federal Telecom Act. States’ main talking point would be that any new national regulatory framework must recognize federal, state and local govts.’ diverse expertise and interests. For instance, the resolution suggests, states have special expertise in retail rate and service quality matters, network reliability, public safety issues, consumer protection and universal service, so they should have a strong role in such areas.
A 3rd Telecom Committee resolution calls for creation of a 15-member federal-state conference on local exchange carrier cost recovery in high-cost areas. That unit would have a year to propose a comprehensive approach to cost recovery to cut high-cost-area carriers’ reliance on intercarrier compensation payments to remain whole. That proposal would incorporate changes to intercarrier compensation, separations and universal service. Such changes also would have to be consistent with existing market and technology forces. The resolution would call on the FCC to hold hearings on the panel’s proposals.
The 4th telecom resolution would ask the FCC to suspend a Dec. 31 deadline by which wireless carriers are to achieve 95% penetration of digital, location-capable wireless phones until some carrier achieves that penetration level via normal market churn and equipment replacement. The resolution said lower-powered digital phones and weak rural signal coverage mean rural customer safety could fall due to inability to get any signal. Alternatively, the resolution would call for a waiver process to accommodate carriers who have good reason for not meeting the 95% penetration deadline.
NARUC’s Consumer Affairs Committee is weighing 3 proposed resolutions. One would encourage any telecom law update to ensure states have an “integral role” in telecom consumer affairs, educating consumers and carriers and providing a “local venue” for resolving complaints and disputes. Another would ask industry, FCC and state regulators to develop a plan for raising public awareness of Lifeline and Link-Up subsidy programs for low-income households, and educating consumers on these assistance programs’ benefits. FCC and NARUC officials Tues. plan to unveil a major federal-state initiative to boost Lifeline enrollment. A 3rd resolution would commend the FCC for giving VoIP providers a firm deadline for implement a solution for providing an E-911 implementation solution for VoIP service.