USTelecom says special access regulation 'distorts the scope' of FCC's discretion

The United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) fired back against competitive local exchange carriers (CLECS), saying that regulating incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) special access services would overstep the Federal Communications Commission's legal boundaries. The association referred to a joint letter filed by Birch Communications, BT Americas and Level 3 in which the trio said the FCC has broad power to adopt regulations governing rates for ILEC special access services. However, USTelecom said in its own filing that the FCC can't rewrite existing laws and that the letter "distorts the scope of the agency's discretion, which is constrained by the Communications Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Commission's own decisions, and mischaracterizes the level of deference that courts typically afford agencies under Chevron and other precedent that hold agencies to a considerably higher standard in carrying out their rulemaking responsibilities."

USTelecom said that while the joint CLEC letter asks the FCC to re-regulate Ethernet and increase regulation of ILEC special access pricing, "the current regulatory scheme has been in place for some time, and enterprise broadband services, in particular, were deregulated by a grant of forbearance almost a decade ago."