Pa. Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA) urged FCC not to approve Ve...

it agreed that CLEC access had improved and consumers would benefit from Verizon’s competing in long distance market. However, 3 things must be improved first, OCA said: (1) Verizon must offer CLECs “all of the loop qualification information to which Verizon has access and develop a metric as to the accuracy of this information.” (2) Telco must produce white page listings for CLECs with “same level of accuracy that it offers to its retail customers and develop a metric to measure such accuracy.” (3) Verizon must “commit to not seeking to overturn the Pa. PUC’s fundamental regulatory authority to implement and maintain self- effectuating metric remedies.” OCA said Verizon had taken legal action against metrics mechanism in past so FCC should get commitment that it wouldn’t do it this time. OCA is state govt. organization that represents consumer interests before PUC, federal agencies, courts. Not surprisingly, competitors urged FCC to turn down Verizon’s Sec. 271 petition for Pa. WorldCom said Verizon had “progressed a long way” in Pa. but “instead of resolving the handful of issues that remain and presenting the Commission with a clean application, Verizon seeks Sec. 271 authorization based on future promises and rhetoric.” Assn. of Communications Enterprises (ASCENT) said FCC should deny petition because Verizon: (1) “Unlawfully restricts… resale of xDSL- based advanced services to consumers who receive their voice service from Verizon.” (2) “Has yet to develop and implement a reliable billing system.” (3) Doesn’t provide nondiscriminatory network access “in critical competitive areas,” such as provision of “hot cut loops.” Sprint complained that Verizon had stymied Sprint’s access in number of ways. Sprint said Verizon: (1) “Refuses to allow Sprint to interconnect at a single point of interconnection per LATA as clearly required by Commission’s rules.” (2) Doesn’t let CLECs order interoffice transport facilities at same time they apply for colocation, instead delaying CLEC rollout by waiting until 2 weeks before colocation is complete. (3) Refuses to apply reciprocal compensation to local calls over existing access trunk facilities and instead “has attempted to bill Sprint access charges for these calls.” AT&T said Pa. PUC should be commended for helping create conditions conducive to competition but “this progress cannot obscure the fact that [2 PA PUC commissioners] voted to oppose” Verizon application “because of Verizon’s failures” to comply with 14- point competitive checklist.