FCC Seen Adopting USTelecom Forbearance Draft Order Without Major Changes
An FCC draft order to grant USTelecom's forbearance petition in various areas is expected to be adopted Thursday without major changes despite CLEC pushback, agency officials told us Wednesday. XO and others pressed the FCC not to give ILECs relief…
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from duties to share newly deployed feeder conduits with competitors at regulated rates (see 1512110062). They said USTelecom hadn't justified the forbearance and the competitors still need regulated access to such "entrance conduits" to reach the buildings of business customers. But the commission appears unlikely to back off the draft's proposal to give ILECs relief from regulated sharing of entrance conduits for “greenfield" developments, the officials said. A CLEC representative suggested Wednesday the agency could be setting a bad precedent. "If they let it go through as is, you have to ask: are they creating a low bar for future forbearance petitions?" the CLEC representative said. "A lot of this stuff is market specific. Are they going to allow them to skate by without the evidence." The commission is to vote at its Thursday meeting on a draft order on the USTelecom petition (see 1512100063), and agency officials indicated the item would give incumbent telcos relief from several requirements, including to offer wholesale access (see 1511240070 and 1511250047).