NCTA Criticizes Enforcement Bureau Handling of Verizon Petition
Enforcement Bureau handling of a Verizon petition drew criticism by the NCTA, which attacked the bureau for commingling review of that request with its consideration of whether the Bell broke FCC rules on switching phone numbers to cable operators when customers change service providers. In a Thursday letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, copied to the other commissioners, NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow said the bureau acted in an “inappropriate” manner on Verizon’s request that the agency consider establishing a porting process for video customers. NCTA deemed Verizon’s petition irrelevant to its recently completed review (CD April 15 p5) of a complaint by Bright House, Comcast and Time Warner Cable that Verizon broke phone porting rules by using subscriber information from those companies to try to lure back departing phone customers.
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McSlarrow cited “concern” that Verizon’s petition was discussed at length in an April 11 bureau recommendation that commissioners vote against the cable complaint. “In doing so, the Enforcement Bureau appears to have strayed from its role as a neutral arbiter of the facts and the law,” he wrote.
Martin termed it “very appropriate” for the bureau to recommend that telecom services’ porting policies be consistent. Cable should “spend less time complaining about the process here and more time making sure that we've got a level playing field,” he told reporters late Thursday. There’s nothing wrong with the bureau considering Verizon’s petition in the same document as cable operators’ complaint, a lawyer who does cable and telecom work said. But its issuance of a finding via a recommended decision and not an order was unprecedented and “very unusual,” the lawyer said.
The process for cable customers to disconnect that service isn’t linked to the complaint, McSlarrow wrote. Verizon wants telcos to be able to request that cable operators cut off service -- at customer request -- when consumers switch video services. That issue isn’t “a defense that might somehow justify Verizon’s conduct” on number porting, he wrote. “Yet the bureau, on its own and without soliciting comments from the complainants or others, devotes nearly half of its ‘legal analysis’ to consideration of the Verizon petition and its implications.” Bureau analysis of a petition “filed by the defendant in the very matter it is adjudicating… calls into serious question the basis on which it reached its recommended decision,” added McSlarrow.
Verizon has said that the bureau acted correctly. Cable is “trying to lock in customers” and prevent them from switching providers, said a Verizon spokesman. “We believe the FCC will turn this industry dispute into a constructive review of carrier practices that affect consumers’ ability to choose new services and new providers.”