NARUC’s Federalism Task Force released the final draft report...
NARUC’s Federalism Task Force released the final draft report on cooperative federalism and telecom (http://bit.ly/17d1bBZ). The report, based on “listening sessions” and written comments from a range of parties, will guide NARUC’s members on interaction with state and federal legislators…
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as well as agencies for communications policy, it said Monday. NARUC backs joint boards between the FCC and the states for “collectively seeking, developing and implementing communications policy recommendations.” The report urges the FCC to determine the regulatory status of VoIP and other Internet Protocol-enabled services. The states should continue to maintain the primary and immediate responsibility for end-user consumer protection and for ensuring service reliability, safety and service quality under state laws, the report said. Interconnection is “necessary to ensure ubiquitous service and enhance competition among providers,” said the report, and should be required for all providers regardless of the technology they use. The states are also “well positioned to work with all stakeholders” to ensure there’s “robust competition” and customer choice across their specific jurisdictions, the report said. It calls for the states, FCC and service providers to work together to ensure that all customers can access emergency services and call-completion problems. States need to work with the FCC through the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service to ensure that service providers continue to meet the social policy goals through providing access to services such as Lifeline, Telecommunications Relay Service and carrier of last resort obligations as permitted by state law, said the report. CompTel said it was “particularly encouraged” by the task force’s recognition of the states’ role in arbitrating interconnection agreements. The association also is pleased that the report encourages states to monitor the status of competition, “as this is critical in evaluating the effect of the FCC’s last mile policies and the need for modernizing them in order to enable a wholesale market that ensures and further enhances competition,” said Angie Kronenberg, CompTel general counsel, in an email. While the report is final, the task force will review any comments it receives, National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Telecom Researcher Sherry Lichtenberg, a task force member, told us. The task force will present a resolution to accept the report at NARUC’s November meeting. If the measure passes, the report will become NARUC policy.