Commissioner Robert McDowell held a debate on an AT&T forbearance...
Commissioner Robert McDowell held a debate on an AT&T forbearance petition at 4 p.m. Monday in his office, pitting AT&T against petition rival the Ad Hoc Coalition, industry sources told us. McDowell is undecided whether to grant the petition,…
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which seeks relief from cost-allocation rules that require Bell companies to keep records that, among other tasks, separate interstate and intrastate costs (CD April 21 p13). Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated two draft orders, one approving and one denying. McDowell is seen as the swing vote, with Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein opposing forbearance. Commissioner Deborah Tate’s position has been unclear. The petition has seen opposition by states, and she once was state commissioner. But states may not sway her this time, Bob Quinn, AT&T regulatory affairs senior vice president, said in an interview. In AT&T’s 22-state region, only three state commissions have filed opposition, he noted. Each of those oppositions echoed an argument by the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations saying AT&T should wait for the Joint Board to complete an ongoing separations reform proceeding, he said. That proceeding has been pending for eight years, he said. Also, AT&T is working with states on other concerns, Quinn said. For example, “Florida asked us to file allocated data in the event that we come in for a storm recovery cost proceeding,” he said. “We said that we would do that.” If a state requires certain data, AT&T will still provide it, he said. AT&T argued that and other points Friday in a 10-page letter sent the FCC. Opponents “have not identified a single actual, current Commission use of these cost allocations as they relate to AT&T,” AT&T said in the letter. AT&T terms cost-assignment rules outdated vestiges of rate-of-return regulation to which price-cap regulated AT&T is no longer subject. Foes’ “entire case is based on speculation” that allocations may be used in a future proceeding, it said. That’s no basis for denial, it said. “In the highly unlikely event the Commission somehow found a need for allocated costs in the future, AT&T would comply with any lawful requirement to that end within a reasonable time frame.”