Bells Seek To Use Special-Access Data in Tariff Probe; Campbell Criticizes Wheeler
AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier and Verizon asked the FCC to modify special-access rulemaking protective orders to allow parties to use confidential industry data from that proceeding in the Wireline Bureau’s recently opened tariff investigation into ILEC contract terms and conditions. Meanwhile,…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Fred Campbell, executive director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, suggested FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had opened the bureau tariff investigation to gain more control over the special-access process than in the commission-level rulemaking. But an FCC spokesman said the commission would have to vote on the bureau investigation to act. In opening the tariff probe, the bureau used the data "to draw preliminary conclusions related to this investigation,” the four large incumbent telcos said in a motion posted Monday in docket 05-25. But they said the protective order terms prevent parties from using the rulemaking data in the tariff investigation despite the data likely including "relevant information about the state of competition" and the relationships to ILEC contract terms. “These data are therefore necessary to the ILECs’ defense in the tariff investigation, and the Commission should accordingly modify the protective orders,” the four incumbent telcos said. ILEC critics Incompas and Sprint didn't comment. In a Forbes commentary, Campbell said, “The FCC claims ‘a more systematic inquiry’ into telephone companies’ pricing plans is necessary to determine their reasonableness. But the FCC’s framework for this tariff investigation is so sloppy and unsystematic that the outcome appears to have been predetermined.” Instead of examining all the issues in one proceeding, Campbell said, the use of a tariff investigation gives Wheeler “the power to exercise unilateral control over the FCC’s approach to regulating special access” while “obscuring the agency’s discriminatory approach to such regulation.” Campbell said the rulemaking will require a commission majority to adopt an order, but the bureau “has delegated authority to issue orders involving tariffs, and the chairman controls” the bureau. Wheeler's authority to act unilaterally on telco tariffs "gives him leverage to control the outcome of the broader rulemaking,” Campbell said. The FCC spokesman said the bureau won't decide the investigation and pointed us to the first paragraph of the order, which said the bureau "intends to gather sufficient information to enable the full Commission to decide whether and how to resolve these allegations." In response, Campbell said intent was not the same as a binding order. "If they’re absolutely going to stand behind a commission-level vote 100 percent, OK, but until there’s something unequivocal to that effect, I don’t think it changes my analysis at all,” he told us.