The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected MetroPCS...
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected MetroPCS arguments that the FCC acted “arbitrarily and capriciously and contrary to law” in declining to decide what was “reasonable compensation” to a CLEC for terminating telecom traffic originating on MetroPCS’s…
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network. The FCC had decided that the California Public Utilities Commission was “a more appropriate forum to determine a reasonable compensation rate” and declined to issue a ruling. The case centered on a dispute between MetroPCS and CLEC North County, but MetroPCS said it had larger implications. A panel of the court found the FCC had done no wrong in handing off the decision to the CPUC. “In the absence of statutory text plainly requiring otherwise, we have little trouble concluding … that the FCC reasonably determined that the FCC had no duty to set the rates for the wholly intrastate traffic at issue here,” said the opinion written by Judge Thomas Griffith. “The FCC’s policy of allowing state agencies to set such rates is consistent with the dual regulatory scheme assumed in the Communications Act, which grants the FCC authority over interstate communications but reserves wholly intrastate matters for the states.” The FCC has made clear “it would not hesitate to preempt any rates set by the states that would undermine the federal policy that encourages CMRS providers and LECs to interconnect,” Griffith wrote. “This is consistent with what Congress intended."