Court Weighs FCC Bid To Hold AT&T Price-Cap USF Challenge in Abeyance
A federal court took a short timeout from its briefing schedule so it can consider an FCC motion to suspend substantive judicial review of an AT&T challenge to a commission order on price-cap telco USF duties, pending regulatory action on…
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related issues in other proceedings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday granted an FCC request to file the motion to hold the case in abeyance and the court suspended its current briefing schedule. The court didn't rule on the FCC motion to hold the case in abeyance, which already has been submitted. In its motion, the FCC noted that AT&T and others in August had asked the FCC to relieve price-cap carriers of eligible telecom carrier (ETC) obligations to serve rural areas where they would no longer be subsidized if they elected to receive USF support under the agency’s Connect America Fund Phase II overhaul of the high-cost program. AT&T and others also had urged the FCC to permit, but no longer require, high-cost ETCs to participate in the Lifeline USF program subsidizing low-income telecom consumers. Separately, in October, USTelecom petitioned the FCC to forbear from applying related high-cost and Lifeline rules. The FCC in December partially granted USTelecom’s petition, relieving price-cap carriers of their ETC duty to offer voice service in census blocks determined to be “low-cost,” served by an unsubsidized competitor, or where a competing ETC is receiving USF support to deploy fixed broadband/voice networks. AT&T then challenged the FCC order in the D.C. Circuit, arguing it didn't provide enough relief and was arbitrary and capricious (AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038). But the commission motion said that the agency made clear in December it wasn’t addressing all the issues raised in USTelecom’s petition or by commenters in the high-cost and Lifeline proceedings -- all three of which remain open. The FCC thus asked the court to hold the case in abeyance until (a) the agency finalizes its USTelecom forbearance review -- which must occur by Jan. 4 -- or earlier if it acts on the high-cost and Lifeline issues AT&T is targeting; and (b) AT&T petitions for review of the resulting orders, assuming it does so. The FCC said its prospective actions in the open proceedings could moot or alter AT&T’s current challenge, and even if they don’t, it made more sense for the court to consider all the issues at one time, rather than piecemeal. AT&T Tuesday opposed the FCC motion. “There is no reason for delay,” the telco said. “At bottom the FCC promulgated a rule it knows it cannot defend,” AT&T said. “That the FCC might, in a future order, grant AT&T relief from [unlawful] obligations is no reason to hold the case in abeyance.”