NuVox, XO Wanted FCC To Open AT&T/BellSouth 'Back Room'

Telecom Policy Report, Oct 16, 2006

"The Missoula proposal is not a consensus plan as characterized, and you have to take it in by its piece parts," he said. "It is a compromise arranged by ILECs that compromise our interests, and we weren't in the room. It was framed in a manner much more favorable to them than to us CLECs."

Cadieux, who says he has attended workshops on the plan, suggested that a new recovery mechanism totaling about $1.5 billion in the Missoula proposal could be used by ILECs to help support USF, but it could not be used by CLECs, which would be contributing money to it. Other aspects of the SLC/USF relationship appear convoluted. "One big Rubiks' Cube," he quipped. Cadieux also maintained that the Missoula proposal represents an ILEC "end run" to circumvent state jurisdictional rights and FCC limits.

Missoula Plan detractors include CompTel and XO, among others. XO's Lisa R. Youngers, director of federal regulatory affairs, pointed out that other opponents like CTIA-The Wireless Association, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates have had long discussions about the plan with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which filed the plan with the FCC but didn't take a formal position.

During the regulatory workshop - hosted by law firm DicksteinShapiro LLP, which long ago represented Tom Carter in the landmark Carterfone interconnection case - Youngers also ticked off a number of concerns and objections to FCC considerations for USF reform, including the so-called "telephone numbers approach" for basing contributions on phone numbers instead of the current long- distance revenues method.

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