FCC's Copps Wants Plan To Deal With Telecom Failures

Communications Today, July 22, 2002

Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Michael Copps is asking the agency to review rules on how consumers can be protected from losing service when a telecom company goes out of business.

Copps also said the commission needs to reexamine its accounting requirements for companies and its reliance on corporate-furnished data in light of recent accounting scandals. "We can't figure this out going back to the starting line every time there is a problem," Copps said.

This past week, FCC Chairman Michael Powell asked Congress to clarify when the FCC can step in to prevent a company from shutting down service. The FCC has authority to prevent shutdowns by companies that provide telephone service until customers find new providers, but how much of that authority extends to other services like high-speed Internet service is unclear. "There are questions that we don't seem to be able to answer to everybody's satisfaction, so I think we should, obviously internally, be putting every possible emphasis on figuring out the powers we have and the authorization that we have and how we can use that," Copps said.