Five submarine cable operators urged the FCC to create a new regu...

which the FCC has issued a separate cable landing license, said Level 3 and four other companies in comments on 2008 regulatory fee assessment and collection. FCC rules require that the agency annually collect regulatory fees for “costs associated with the Commission’s enforcement, policy and rulemaking, user information, and international activities.” IBC regulatory fees for services sometimes exceed revenue, said Level 3, among the companies filing. The IBC fee “distorts the market by grossly overcharging high-capacity systems” and “discourages innovative submarine cable offerings,” the backhaul provider said. Fees must be updated to reflect industry changes, it said. The FCC still assesses submarine cable operators’ fees according to capacity though they haven’t had to ask the FCC for consent to add circuits since the 1996 Telecom Act, it said. To triple capacity, for example, Level 3 has to pay three times in regulatory fees, even though the FCC need do nothing more, it said. The five operators suggested the FCC split today’s IBC fee revenue requirement 50-50 between new IBC and SCS fees. To set each company’s SCS fee, the FCC would divide the revenue requirement by the number of payers, they said. The FCC should reduce submarine cable operators’ fees, but not at other companies’ expense, AT&T said. Changes to IBC fees “should not result in increased fees for other services or service providers,” it said. AT&T also claimed the current system has not handicapped the industry. “There is… no apparent adverse impact on industry growth from the existing fees, with Commission data showing a massive on- going expansion of U.S. submarine cable international circuit capacity, including substantial capacity increases by many private cable operators.”