FCC Wireline Bureau Targets Old Petitions
The FCC Wireline Bureau has been asking industry parties to withdraw petitions that have languished for years without FCC action. The bureau wouldn’t comment but sources said they received phone calls and e-mails asking if they would be willing to pull the long-pending petitions. The FCC electronic filing logs for the last 2 weeks show more than a dozen industry notices of withdrawn petitions.
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The agency may be trying to cut a proceedings backlog before a Wed. House oversight hearing, some sources speculated. House Democrats are generally critical of FCC backlogs. But a former FCC employee said this isn’t the first time the FCC has winnowed filings. The agency “periodically has backlog reduction efforts,” he said.
“I think it’s a house cleaning thing,” said a source for a company that yanked a petition. In contacting a petitioner, FCC staff usually say a petition has been pending a long time and asks the sponsor if it would take the petition off the rolls, the source said. “The FCC has approached us about a handful of stale items,” said another source. Petitioners can refuse to pull petitions if they think they're still important, a lobbyist said. “They do this periodically,” targeting old petitions “where there hasn’t been a lot of activity,” said another industry source. “I never felt pressure” to withdraw any documents, he said.
On Fri. alone, 5 withdrawal letters were filed at the FCC. Verizon withdrew a 1995 petition for reconsideration of an FCC decision on virtual collocation, filed by predecessor Bell Atlantic. PCIA pulled a 1999 filing demanding FCC clarify its implementation of Telecom Act local competition provisions. PCIA also pulled a 2001 petition for reconsideration of the FCC “numbering resource optimization” order. The Puerto Rico Telephone Co. withdrew a 2000 petition for reconsideration of the “forward-looking mechanism for high cost support for non-rural LECs,” a universal service issue. SureWest Telephone, formerly Roseville Telephone, withdrew a 2001 petition for reconsideration of FCC action on the separations freeze.
AT&T Thurs. withdrew 3 petitions. One sought review of an 1995 SBC tariff decision; another filed in 1997 by predecessor Ameritech, was identified only as a partial reconsideration of Doc. 93-162. The 3rd involved a request by a no longer operational company, Gemini Networks, for unbundled access to Southern New England Telephone facilities in Conn. AT&T said it “continues to believe it is correct on the merits of its positions… and retains the right to re- file the petition in the event it becomes necessary.” USTelecom Thurs. pulled a petition seeking clarification of a numbering issue. The Coalition of Competitive Fiber Providers withdrew a petition for declaratory ruling.
The National Exchange Carrier Assn. withdrew 6 petitions, one for each year from 2000 to 2005, that all sought the same goal: “Reconsideration or review of decisions… that required NECA to use ‘cost per loop’ formulas to determine high cost loop support payments” for rural companies that participate in its pools instead of the “expense adjustment per loop” formula proposed by NECA. NECA said differences between the formulas have become smaller, so it’s withdrawing the petitions “in consideration of Commission staff’s request.” NECA, however, said it still thinks its formula is better than the FCC’s.