The N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) suspended hearings on a long...
The N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) suspended hearings on a long-standing complaint by AT&T (formerly BellSouth) alleging that NuVox Communications broke the companies’ interconnection agreement by certifying falsely that its enhanced extended loops (EEL) were used mainly for local exchange…
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traffic. The action amended an April decision denying NuVox’s petition to dismiss the case. NuVox sought reconsideration of the denial because a federal court in Raleigh last year reinstated an injunction that prohibited the NCUC from auditing NuVox’s EELs. The audit would be needed to determine the kind of traffic on NuVox’s EELs. The reinstatement of the EEL audit ban named each NCUC member individually and the agency. The NCUC said each member was an individual defendant, so the agency’s ability to decide this dispute could be compromised by the possibility that members might be held personally responsible of they violated the reinstated injunction. The case had its roots in a 2003 BellSouth petition for an audit of NuVox’s EELs, which the NCUC granted in 2004 (Case P-772, Sub 7). NuVox appealed to the federal courts, where the matter bounced between trial and appeals courts before ending back at the U.S. Dist. Court, Raleigh, where it sits. Meanwhile, the state attorney general’s office asked whether the case has become moot because of the AT&T-BellSouth merger and because the companies in May 2006 signed a new interconnection agreement superseding earlier ones.