Doing Away With Regulations

In a process that most carriers probably don’t know about, any carrier can petition the FCC to get rid of or modify any regulation that it no longer thinks is necessary. This is an ongoing process and so the FCC issues a biennial report and every two years produces a summary of the requests that have been made as well as the FCC response to those requests. The latest biennial report DA-13-1708A1 was issued yesterday.

For the most part this is pretty dry regulatory stuff, but some of the changes that carriers request are significant and affects a lot of carriers. While many of the requests are to eliminate reports to the FCC, many requests are more substantial. In reading through this year’s report one will notice that Verizon appears more than any other carrier and one must imagine that they have somebody on staff dedicated to removing regulation.

Here are some of the issues investigated by the FCC in this latest report:

• CenturyLink and Verizon advocate eliminating continuing property records (CPRs) contained in Part 32. These are detailed asset logs showing the cost, age and type of each asset in a company and must be updated each year for both additions and retirements. For even small LECs the cost of producing CPRs can be expensive.  The FCC has now eliminated the requirement for CPRs for price cap carriers but still require them for rate-of-return carriers.
• Verizon asked that the Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) rules in Part 54 b modified so that an ETC is no longer required to serve customers in areas where the carrier gets no USF support, and also in areas where it is unprofitable to serve with landline but where customers have a competitive alternative. Verizon asks to get rid of its lifeline responsibilities in such areas, and effectively be able to walk away from serving customers. The FCC did not agree to removing these rules but instead wrapped the request into the Connect America Fund and the Lifeline and Link-up Reform and Modernization proceedings.
• USTelecom asked the FCC to remove the requirement to notify the FCC when a carrier wants to replace legacy technology with an IP broadband technology covered by Part 63. For example, this would allow a carrier to stop offering copper services if they offer something else, such as what Verizon wants to do on Fire Island sue to hurricane damage. The FCC declined to accept this request.
• USTelecom asked that ILECs not be required to have separate subsidiaries for offering in-region long distance as required by Part 64. The FCC concluded that this requirement no longer applied to ILECs subject to price caps. But the rules remain in effect for rate-of-return carriers.
• Verizon asked the FCC to complete access reform by eliminating originating access charges as required by Part 69. The FCC noted that this was more properly addressed in the ongoing USF/ICC Transformation FNPRM.
• NTCH asked that the FCC eliminate requirements to notify the FCC of temporary cell phone towers as required by Part 17. Temporary towers are often used during the process of relocating existing towers or when repairing towers after a disaster. The FCC responded by forebearing the existing rules for towers that would be in place for less than 60 days and that which met other conditions.
• Verizon asked the FCC to eliminate the requirement that it notify the FCC within 120 minutes for major network outages per Part 4. Verizon noted that they have as many as 1,000 such outages every year. The FCC did not agree to the request.
• The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) asked that some of the rules concerning standards for hearing aids and volume controls for hard-of-hearing sets in Part 68 be eliminated due to new TIA standards. The FCC responded by issuing a Public Notice and asking if there should be a rulemaking for the issue.

As you can see by just this sample of the issues that were covered in this docket that the FCC is always being challenged by carriers to eliminate regulations. Any carrier can make such a request and there were dozens of such requests considered in this latest two-year cycle. Sort of like sausage-making, regulation is not always a pretty picture, but the FCC does eliminate regulatory requirements every year that it deems are no longer in the public benefit.