WESTERN WIRELESS ASKS COURT TO OVERTURN LNP DELAY IMPOSED IN NEB.
Western Wireless filed a complaint in federal court in Neb. against the Neb. PSC’s order granting a suspension of rural LEC’s local number portability obligations through Jan. 2006. The FCC ordered all carriers to port numbers starting May 24. The lawsuit is the first filed in federal court challenging a state commission’s suspension of those obligations.
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Western Wireless’s pleading, filed late last week, notes that through the 1990s, local phone service was viewed as a “natural monopoly” -- an assumption ended by the Telecom Act bringing “competition among multiple providers of local service.” Western observed that it made “bona fide requests for LNP” of 16 LECs in Neb. But those LECs and 15 others petitioned the Commission for a delay. While the PSC granted a delay July 20, Western Wireless said “the record establishes, contrary to the order of the commission, that it is technically feasible to implement LNP.” The wireless carrier also observed that a number of ILECs in the state “have implemented LNP and are porting numbers to CMRS providers.”
Western Wireless also argued that contrary to the order, suspension of the LNP mandate “is not in the public interest” and is also contrary to determinations by Congress and the FCC. Moreover, the carrier said, “implementation of LNP has proven to be an enabler of competition.”
“Notwithstanding the fact that at least one rural telephone company in Neb., all non-rural telephone companies in Neb., and numerous other rural and non-rural telephone companies throughout the U.S. have implemented LNP, the Neb. state commission somehow concludes that it is not technically feasible for the rural telephone companies to implement LNP,” said Gene DeJordy, Western Wireless vp-regulatory affairs. “The evidence in this case, however, does not support the state commission’s decision, which will now be reviewed by the impartial federal court. We look forward to the day when customers of rural telephone companies can take advantage of intermodal number portability so that they can freely choose service providers.”
In May, with the national LNP deadline approaching, Consumer Affairs Bureau Chief Dane Snowden sent state regulators a letter asking them to “to hold carriers that seek waivers of their porting obligations to the appropriate standard of review… If relief were to be granted in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, or for indefinite periods, it would be a setback for rural consumers.”
Catherine Seidel, deputy chief of the Wireless Bureau, said Mon. the FCC has before it more than 40 waiver petitions representing more than 90 small Tier III carriers, which it must still address. “We're carefully analyzing how we should recommend they be resolved by the Commission,” she said: “We're very near being in a position to make some recommendations to the Commission.”