CLECs Fight Verizon’s RI Forbearance Petition

The FCC wants feedback on a motion to dismiss or reject Verizon Communications Inc.’s latest forbearance petition.

Initial comments are due April 7; reply comments are due April 14.

Verizon is requesting the very relief it didn’t get last year in six Northeastern markets. The carrier wants freedom from loop and transport unbundling rules, dominant-carrier tariffing, price cap regulations and Computer III requirements in nearly all of Rhode Island.

But a group of 30 CLECs is fighting back. Last week they asked the FCC to dump or reject Verizon’s new petition; they said it contains no new evidence and wastes FCC resources. They also charged that Verizon was playing loose with FCC rules, using the Rhode Island document as “an untimely petition for reconsideration” of the six-MSA order.

For its part, Verizon contends it faces “extensive facilities-based competition for mass-market and enterprise customers alike,” primarily from cable operator Cox Communications Inc. This, the company said in its Feb. 14 FCC filing, entitles it to the same relief Qwest Communications International Inc. secured in Omaha, Neb., in 2005.

The FCC has up to 15 months to rule on Verizon’s Rhode Island forbearance petition, although Verizon said in its filing the relief should be granted “promptly.”