In a Tuesday order, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission dismissed...

Colorado Office of the Consumer Counsel appealed the order in January (CD Jan 16 p11). The December order caps the state’s high-cost fund at $54 million, maintains limited regulation of IP and proposes judgments of which parts of the state are effectively competitive or not, which would influence levels of support. It denied the Colorado Telecom Association’s request for a waiver of these rules for RLECs, which the association argued would create financial burdens, because the request was too vague, it said (http://bit.ly/12yz7BE). “We will endeavor to administer the processes and proceedings resulting from the proposed rules efficiently, including consideration of the RLECs’ particular circumstances,” the PUC said. “We also will consider any request for waiver filed at the appropriate time and with the appropriate supporting information from individual carriers.” The PUC did clarify, at the request of CenturyLink and PUC staff, the order’s language to make clear that judgments of effective competition will take place on the wire center serving area. The association of RLECs didn’t want wireless to be considered a landline substitute, a concern the PUC disregarded: “The Commission fully reviewed the issue of considering a wireless carrier as a competitor to wireline service and determined that, where wireless coverage exists, it is a competitive alternative to wireline.” It also denied the association’s request for lightened regulation in areas deemed effectively competitive and asserted the provider-of-last-resort obligations it maintains.