Streamlining Telegraph Rules: This is Tricky Stuff

For anyone who thought that we didn’t need a comprehensive, focused inquiry on how to clear the path for communications to move from a TDM-based circuit switched world to an all-IP, broadband future , you must have noticed a ripple in the force last week.

That ripple, of course, was caused by the failure of the FCC to meet the statutory one-year deadline to decide a US Telecom petition that seeks forbearance from, among other things, rules which apply to carriers engaged in furnishing “radio-telegraph, wire-telegraph, or ocean-cable service,” and requires such carriers to maintain “separate files for each damage claim of a traffic nature.” That’s right. One year was not enough time to determine whether we could finish making the move from the telegraph-era to the telephone-era. Apparently, this is tricky stuff. But fear not, under the statute, the Commission is only allowed to extend the due date on this request for three more months , and I am confident that, given that extra time, the Commission will see the light and grant this relief.