The Bells and USTA told an appeals court UNE rules the FCC okayed...
The Bells and USTA told an appeals court UNE rules the FCC okayed in Dec. remain too “broad” to address issues raised in past judicial rulings. In a joint July 26 brief, the Bells and USTA told the U.S.…
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Appeals Court, D.C., that the FCC UNE rules were vacated 3 times -- once by the U.S. Supreme Court, twice by the D.C. Circuit -- because they required incumbent LECs such as the Bells to offer unbundled elements to competitors “even when competitors could and did provide service without forced access to the ILECs’ facilities.” The brief said the latest rules still don’t satisfy the courts’ concerns: “Although, after three judicial reversals, the FCC finally removed unbundling obligations as to the switching facilities that are used to serve ‘mass market’ residential consumers, the FCC yet again ordered what its then-chairman [Michael Powell] called ‘wide unbundling.'” The filing made 3 arguments: (1) The FCC didn’t adequately weigh competitors’ ability to use tariffed special access service as an alternative to unbundled elements. (2) The FCC unlawfully let carriers convert existing special access circuits to UNEs “solely to obtain a price break.” (3) The FCC denied unbundling only in areas with “extraordinary levels of competition” and ignored more reasonable examples of competition. The UNE rules the FCC approved Dec. 15 (CD Dec 16 p1) phased out CLEC use of TELRIC-priced UNE platforms (UNE-P), a move Bells backed. Their opposition lies in another area, where the FCC cut only slightly the number of situations when the Bells must share high-capacity loops and transport used to serve business customers. The Bells have called those reductions too limited. The Bells and USTA jointly appealed the FCC order Feb. 24. USTA now is known as USTelecom.