Verizon and RWA at Odds on Who Can See Confidential Information
Verizon and the Rural Wireless Association clashed over whether third-party participants in the T-Mobile/UScellular proceeding should have access to information Verizon wants to keep private. Verizon in particular seeks to block disclosure of any mobile virtual network operator wholesale agreements between Verizon’s affiliates and third parties, including the wholesale agreement between Verizon and Mediacom Communications.
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The FCC’s protective order in the proceeding “exists precisely to allow a Reviewing Party, such as RWA’s Outside Counsel, who has signed" the attached confidentiality acknowledgment, "to review competitively sensitive materials under strict confidentiality safeguards,” RWA said last week in docket 24-286. “Having specialized knowledge in no way, shape, or form, makes the possessor of such knowledge any more likely than any other individual to violate the terms of a Protective Order and Verizon fails to demonstrate that the Protective Order would not serve its purpose.”
Verizon fired back in a filing posted Wednesday. “The concern raised by Verizon is not that any outside counsel or experts would intentionally misuse this information,” the carrier said. “Rather, it [is] that this competitive information, dealing with pricing and other key terms of wholesale agreements, cannot be effectively segregated or walled off within the mind of an individual, and will inevitably have an effect on the negotiation positions of those who are privy to it.”