Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) this week withdrew two contentious forbearance petitions that mirrored others already rejected by the FCC.
Commissioners were slated to vote on the requests for regulatory relief in Rhode Island and Virginia Beach no later than Friday. However, Verizon decided to pull the filings because of holdups at a federal appeals court. Judges have not yet ruled whether the FCC was correct in rejecting Verizon’s 2007 pleas for forbearance in six metro markets including Rhode Island and Virginia Beach. After that denial, Verizon refiled documents targeting just Rhode Island and Virginia Beach.
So when Verizon made its May 12 withdrawal, CLECs and their associations were pleased. But they also were spurred to once again ask the FCC to overhaul the forbearance process.
They – along with the Bells, in fact – want the government to detail specific criteria by which forbearance should operate. For competitive carriers and organizations such as COMPTEL, this would include no longer allowing last-minute data drops. The Bells tend to file critical documentation in forbearance proceedings at the eleventh hour, leaving no one time to review and comment on it.
“Fighting these forbearance petitions requires a tremendous amount of time and resources,” said Jerry James, CEO of COMPTEL. “The public interest would be far better served if these resources are used to further efforts to expand the availability and affordability of advanced communications services to consumers.”
