NTCA Backs Great Lakes Comnet's Case Against FCC Order Siding With AT&T

facts at all, and thereby created uncertainty as to the lawfulness of the prices charged by hundreds of other” rural telcos, NTCA told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an amicus brief Wednesday (the case is: Great Lakes Comnet v. FCC, No. 15-1064). The FCC's March 18 order found GLC billed AT&T for interstate access services under a tariff that violated CLEC “benchmark” rules capping access rates. GLC and its indirect subsidiary Westphalia Telephone Co. (WTC) provide tandem switching and inter-office transport services to AT&T and other long-distance carriers (see network map). GLC and WTC challenged the order on various grounds, including that GLC shouldn't be subject to the benchmark rules because it didn't provide end-office switching and wasn’t a CLEC; and even if it were, it should be entitled to a “rural CLEC” exemption or not subject to a “competing ILEC” benchmark cap based on the access rates of AT&T Michigan as that ILEC (see 1508190065). NTCA -- one of whose members is Clinton County Telephone Co., the parent of WTC -- said the FCC decision was arbitrary and capricious because the commission “ignored the language of its own rule and considered irrelevant factors, including the location of certain transport facilities, to determine that Great Lakes Comnet was not a ‘rural CLEC,’” and it “had no rational basis on which to conclude that Michigan Bell was the ‘competing ILEC’ for calls switched by Great Lakes Comnet.” The FCC response is due Oct. 5.