AT&T Backs FCC Discontinuance Draft, Seeks Tweaks; ADT Fights for Adequate Replacement Test
AT&T applauded "the vast majority" of FCC draft order actions to streamline the process for discontinuing traditional telecom services in favor of IP-based services, with two suggested modifications. The ILEC backed an agency proposal "to expedite applications that grandfather, or…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
discontinue previously grandfathered data services at speeds below 25/3 Mbps." But relief should apply to any "legacy-TDM data service regardless of speed so long as the applying carrier provides alternative data services with the same or greater bandwidth as the TDM data service being discontinued," said a filing Wednesday in docket 17-84 on the draft eyed for a commissioner vote June 7 (see 1805170060). AT&T said the FCC should simplify a proposed "alternatives options test" allowing streamlined discontinuance if carriers make certain showings. ADT pressed objections to the draft's "effective elimination" of an "adequate replacement test" for ILECs seeking streamlined TDM discontinuance (see 1805250038). Wireline Bureau staff asked in a meeting about the effect of eliminating a "functional test" in 2017 "on the need for replacement services to be interoperable with third party devices," said an ADT filing that also noted discussions with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and three commissioners. The company said that move "has no bearing" on "assessment of whether there is an adequate replacement service." The draft's suggestion that a "new alternative option 'complements' the adequate replacement test ignores the likely real world outcome that the adequate replacement test, and its requirement of interoperability, will become a dead letter," said ADT. Global Grid, a CLEC and enhanced service provider (ESP), asked the FCC to deny a CenturyLink discontinuance application. If the FCC approves it without ensuring access to certain monitoring and control capabilities, "suitable network controls and access should be required by the FCC that would allow [ESPs] and [CLECs] to develop and deploy current and future Call Management solutions using the Advanced Intelligent Network infrastructure," Global Grid filed in docket 18-96.