RLECs Warn Alaska Commission to Not Add to Rules Post-Deregulation
A 2019 Alaska law deregulating telecom "reserves adequate authority” for the Regulatory Commission of Alaska’s “core duties related to the authority granted by a certificate and the authority to designate and annually certify eligible telecommunications carriers,” and it retains RCA…
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authority to oversee state USF, a rural telco coalition commented Friday in docket R-19-002. Regulators are mulling broad telecom rule changes due to the state law (see 1912190057). The RCA doesn't retain authority to adjudicate consumer complaints, though staff could convey "any complaints to utilities as a courtesy to consumers,” the RLECs said. The commission should reject staff proposals to adopt a new definition of basic residential local telephone service and more stringent outage reporting rules. Carriers report outages to the FCC, said Adak Telephone, Alaska Telephone, Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative, Ketchikan Public Utilities, Matanuska Telephone Association and others.