USTelecom Petition for Forbearance Mostly Granted in Draft Order
A circulating draft order would “eliminate or streamline” more than 100 outdated regulations, as sought in the 2012 USTelecom petition for forbearance, FCC officials said Friday. The petition (CD Feb 17/11 p14) sought relief on an industry-wide basis from, by the FCC’s count, 141 unique requirements.
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The draft order denies the requests where the USTelecom petition went overboard, an FCC official said, citing the petition’s attempt to get around consumer protection rules and competition policy, in the process even potentially endangering public safety. In one instance, USTelecom’s proposals went far beyond AT&T’s proposal to turn off certain TDM services in discrete wire centers without prior approval, agency officials said. Instead of geographically limited trials, USTelecom’s proposals sought “immediate nationwide forbearance” from Section 214 discontinuance requirements, they said. Forbearance would have allowed any provider to terminate any service within the scope of that rule, without notice to the commission or competitors.
"In some cases, USTelecom seeks to strip vital protections, or simply seeks to short-circuit the work of the Technology Transitions Task Force,” a senior FCC official said. “We would reject those requests."
In other areas USTelecom sought industry-wide or nationwide relief without providing the kind of quantitative support the FCC usually requires when granting forbearance, agency officials said. Officials particularly struggled with requests for forbearance based on the general philosophy that regulations aren’t needed in the new Internet Protocol world, they said. But rather than simply denying those request, the commission plans to release an NPRM and public notices to gather more information from the industry and potentially streamline many of the remaining rules, agency officials said. The NPRM has not been circulated yet, but is expected within the coming days or weeks, they said.
The order, circulated Thursday, builds on the February order that granted several unopposed items in USTelecom’s request, agency officials said. That order (CD Feb 6 p6) granted forbearance of some clearly antiquated regulations, such as a 1936 rule requiring telegraph providers keep records on each damage claim arising from errors or delays in messages. The circulating order removes a majority of the remaining burdens, commission officials said. They said that’s consistent with Chairman Julius Genachowski’s longstanding promise to review and streaming outdated regulations across the board.
By statute, the commission must resolve the USTelecom petition by May 17, FCC officials said. Commission rules require that commissioners vote on the item at least a week in advance of that deadline, they said.