NARUC Telecom Committee Passes Resolutions on IP Transition, State Access to Outage Database

The Telecom Committee also unanimously approved a resolution urging the FCC to continue to seek state regulators’ input on issues related to the FCC’s IP transition NPRM, including battery backup power for 911 services and consumer protection concerns. NARUC’s Critical Infrastructure Committee also approved the IP transition resolution Tuesday. NARUC’s board is set to consider the resolutions at its meeting Wednesday.

Wheeler said he and FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn have voted for the NORS database order since he circulated it Dec. 10. “It’s been 10 weeks and we’re waiting to hear” from Commissioners Michael O’Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, Wheeler said during a NARUC session Tuesday. Aides for O’Rielly, Pai and Rosenworcel didn’t comment. NARUC Telecom Committee Co-Vice Chairwoman Catherine Sandoval, a member of the CPUC who co-sponsored NARUC’s NORS resolution, was among a group of resolution supporters who met with the FCC Friday to discuss state access to the database, which Wheeler said he hopes increased awareness of the issue. “This is something that shouldn’t have taken this long” for the FCC to address, Wheeler said.

States’ recent experiences with service outages in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy and last April's multistate 911 outage “highlight the importance” of state agencies having improved access to the NORS database, Sandoval said. “We should have done this before, so I’m glad we’re doing it now,” Burke said. The Staff Telecom Subcommittee approved the resolution Sunday with minor language changes to reflect that agencies besides state utility regulators should have access to NORS, as well as language backed by Intrado Regulatory and Government Affairs Director Mary Jane Rasher that emphasizes that state access to NORS should be secure to protect confidential information. The resolution's final version also said some states already have limited access to some NORS information.

The Telecom Committee’s approval of the IP transition resolution was also largely noncontentious, although New York Public Service Commissioner Gregg Sayre tabled a late friendly amendment to the resolution amid concerns it could endanger the resolution’s chances of passing NARUC’s board. Sayre’s amendment would have sought an FCC rule requiring ILECs to continue providing DS-1 and DS-3 unbundled network elements (UNEs) after the transition from TDM to IP. Sayre said he introduced the amendment in response to Windstream’s Dec. 29 petition on the DS-1 and DS-3 UNE obligation. Telecom Committee Co-Vice Chairman Paul Kjellander and others said Sayre should withdraw the amendment because he had introduced it late in the process. Windstream Regulatory Vice President-State Government Affairs Lyndall Nipps said he appreciated Sayre introducing the amendment but urged him to withdraw it if it would “stop this resolution from moving forward.” The Staff Telecom Subcommittee approved the resolution Sunday with only minor language changes.

State utility regulators can have a role in regulating the IP transition within the bounds of their statutory authority on issues like consumer protection, but it’s highly dependent on a more definitive division of regulatory powers between those commissions, the FCC and other state agencies, said AT&T Vice President-State Regulatory Hank Hultquist on a separate panel Sunday. Absent guidance from Congress, “we’ve been talking about these issues at NARUC for many years and no one has resolved them yet,” he said. “I think that’s where we’ll be, we’ll continue talking about them without resolution.”

Where state commissions already have authority to regulate on issues related to the IP transition, “it’s important to see and evaluate how a commission’s actions to protect consumers are providing real value,” Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin said during the Sunday panel. Verizon's reversed course in 2013 on replacing copper service in Fire Island, New York, with fiber instead of Voice Link following Superstorm Sandy (see report in the Sept. 12, 2013, issue) was a unique situation but it shows that unanticipated situations can happen and “if you bring a canary in the coal mine and it dies, you don’t just dismiss it as anecdotal evidence,” she said. The New York PSC played a major role in bringing attention to the issue and showing Verizon that “this was a big deal and they had to find a solution that worked for everybody,” Griffin said. “One of the lessons I take from that is there is a role at both the state and federal levels.”

The FCC and state commissions can improve coordination on handling consumer complaints, Clyburn aide Rebekah Goodheart said. State commissions are closest to those consumer complaints, but a free flow of information between the states and the federal government can be beneficial, she said. “The more we can share, I think the better we all are” given that consumer complaints are often the first indication of an issue, Goodheart said.