Imprecise FCC IP Transition Rules Could Spark Many Disputes, Consultant Says
FCC IP tech transition rules could cause confusion, complaints and lawsuits as parties haggle over messy details in incumbent telco attempts to retire copper networks and services used by competing carriers and customers, CCMI consultant Andy Regitsky said on a Wednesday webinar hosted by CCMI. Regitsky said that while the commission provided various requirements and guidance for managing the migration to fiber-based IP services, some regulations are imprecise and “fraught with disagreement potential.” Noting questions about the rates of substitute IP services ILECs must offer CLECs, he said, “you can look at this from both sides and see there’s trouble ahead.”
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Regitsky noted ILECs seeking to retire copper loops and feeder lines must notify affected interconnecting carriers/providers, including ISPs, and consumers. Under the rules adopted in the FCC August order (see 1508060044 and 1508100019), he noted ILECs don't need FCC approval to retire such lines if services aren't implicated, but they are to provide interconnecting carriers with additional information about potential fallout.
Regitsky said it was “more significant” if ILEC copper retirements halt or impair service to end-users, including those of CLECs using their service on a wholesale basis. In that case, he noted, the ILECs must file discontinuance applications and seek FCC approval pursuant to Section 214 of the Communications Act. Under the rules, ILECs will have to conduct an evaluation to determine the expected fallout, including by consulting with CLEC wholesale customers. ILECs won't have to deal only with CLECs but with their end-user customers, Regitsky said. Both sides have cause for concern, he said: ILECs may have to satisfy all sorts of CLEC (and end-user) demands that could delay their moves from copper to fiber-based IP services, while CLECs won't want to lose wholesale services they need in many areas where they don’t have facilities. What will come out of that process “is kind of left to the imagination,” he said.
ILECs seeking to discontinue “TDM” circuit-switched services used as wholesale inputs will have to provide CLECs with access to replacement IP services on “reasonably comparable” rates, terms and conditions, according to the rules. The FCC spelled out various criteria on pricing and other service features intended to guide carriers, but Regitsky said the agency's "reasonably comparable" standard and "totality of the circumstances” review leave regulators much discretion. The FCC hopes that carriers can resolve questions through good-faith negotiations, he said, but the lack of greater regulatory precision could well lead to marketplace confusion and eventually cause some carriers to file FCC complaints and even lawsuits to settle disputes.
Regitsky noted that the FCC didn't impose a date certain for ending the ILEC replacement-service obligations but linked most of them to the conclusion of its special-access rulemaking. The problem was it’s unclear when that review will be concluded, he said, and the end date is even more unclear for ILEC duties to provide replacement IP commercial platform services, which some ILECs offered voluntarily when FCC-imposed “UNE-P” (unbundled network elements platform) discounts were overturned in court.