Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Rocky Road Ahead: Powell Won't Back Supreme Court Appeal

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 17:46:18 -0500

Rocky Road Ahead: Powell Won't Back Supreme Court Appeal
BY MARK ROCKWELL
MARCH 10, 2004

WASHINGTON -- FCC Chairman Michael Powell warned state regulators that
disruptive technologies such as wireless and VoIP would overtake chaotic
legal efforts to open up the traditional local exchange to competition.

In remarks this morning before state regulators from across the country
in town attending the National Association of Regulatory Utility
Commissioners (NARUC) winter meetings, Powell singled out wireless and
VoIP as among the biggest disruptors on the horizon for regulators to
deal with. They are especially notable in the looming disarray of local
exchange regulation following a landmark court decision last week that
struck down the FCC's rules governing lease of wireline local exchange
facilities.

The ruling could lead to bedlam among competitive local exchange
companies (CLECs) and incumbent wireline carriers that had struck
interconnection agreements that allowed CLECs to lease incumbent network
elements. The ruling essentially invalidates those agreements. The court
gave regulators and carriers 60 days to come to some interim rules to
govern the local markets.

Powell told regulators that he doesn't back an appeal of the unbundled
network element (UNE) ruling at the Supreme Court, saying that such
action would only stretch out an agonizing period of regulatory
uncertainty. An appeal to the Supreme Court would add two years to come
to a resolution that would be inadequate in light of the rise of
wireless and VoIP.

"At a minimum, [a Supreme Court appeal] would cause two years of
uncertainty and risk," Powell said. Any ruling from the court would come
at an increasing unsettled time for telecommunications, he added.
"Wireless and VoIP will begin to dominate the landscape" in the telecom
world of 2005, he said. At the same time, the Telecommunications Act of
1996 will be re-written, probably with a set of new local exchange
leasing rules proposed in it, he said.

To thwart further market uncertainty, Powel urged state regulators to
work with him to come up with a set of interim rules for local exchange
facilities leasing that carriers could use after the old rules become
obsolete after the 60-day period. He also urged carriers to come to fair
voluntary interconnection agreements on their own to help stabilize an
uncertain wireline market.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=newsat2direct&starting=4&pubdate=03/10/04

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