The FCC should promptly grant the NCTA’s forbearance petition that would...

aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnos9f). “Even though such transactions are almost always pro-competitive, the Commission still has ample authority under Section 214 to assess the competitive and other public interest implications of any cable-CLEC transaction,” the notice said. State public utility commissions typically review such deals as well, the notice said. “Imposing additional regulatory hurdles for such transactions serves no valid purpose.” Independent Telephone & Telecommunications officials separately countered some of NCTA’s arguments during teleconferences with aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnos9w). “Any argument that regulatory relief is necessary to allow cable companies to compete with ‘much larger’ incumbent wireline carriers -- represents a gross mischaracterization of the current domestic telecommunications environment,” the filing said. “The combined effect of cable’s increasing market share, the robust growth in VoIP service subscribership and the overall shrinkage of the wireline voice service market has had a dramatic impact on ILECs that NCTA completely ignores,” it said. “It takes enormous audacity for NCTA to argue that cable companies should be given a regulatory hand-out through a waiver or forbearance from Section 652(b) as a means to ‘rekindle’ competition for local exchange service,” the filing said. “The commission should refrain from taking action that would essentially provide wholesale approval of transactions that would eliminate a competitor from the market and create further disparities in regulatory treatment among service providers."