Eighth Circuit to Hear Challenges to FCC's Business Data Services Decision

Legal challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's business data services (BDS) reforms have been consolidated in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Petitions to deny some or all of the FCC's BDS report and order updating the framework for regulating business data services had been filed in three separate federal appeals courts. Those appeals came from CenturyLink, Citizens Telecommunications Company of Minnesota and a consortium of telecoms including Sprint.

The DC Circuit is the one with primary jurisdiction over telecommunications, but in the case of multiple filings, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation holds a lottery to determine the venue. CenturyLink told the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that the FCC's regulation of rates on DS1 and DS3 service in areas deemed noncompetitive was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and otherwise illegal. It said the FCC forced those price caps on competitive carriers despite evidence the cost of service had actually gone down.