CenturyLink: Rehabbing Minn. Network Would Cost 'Untold Millions'
Lumen’s CenturyLink pushed back sharply this week on an administrative law judge’s recommendation that the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission force the carrier to rehab its copper network to address reportedly widespread service quality problems. The recommendation “fails to accurately reflect either the record or applicable Minnesota law,” the carrier said in an exception received Tuesday by the PUC in docket C-20-432. However, Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Erin Conti urged commissioners to adopt the “thorough, well-reasoned” ALJ report.
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Minnesota PUC commissioners now must decide whether to accept, modify or reject ALJ Kimberly Middendorf’s recommendations. "This item will be brought before the commission at a future agenda meeting,” a spokesperson said. Middendorf recommended that commissioners find CenturyLink “failed to provide adequate service … when customers experienced multiple service outages or disruptions caused by deficient outside plant or equipment over an approximately four-and-a-half-year period.” Among other proposed remedies, the PUC should order that CenturyLink “review and rehab certain plant and equipment identified as causing or contributing to repeated service outages or disruptions,” said the ALJ (see 2403180034).
CenturyLink would have “to spend untold millions of dollars to repair or replace copper plant that may or may not be the 'cause' of the perceived service quality issues" and "will soon be stranded as customers continue to migrate to wireless and broadband services,” the carrier responded. "Creating new service quality measures and then forcing the Company to make economically wasteful investments to address those new service quality measures does not serve CenturyLink’s customers or the public interest. Moreover, such mandates would only further tilt the competitive playing field against CenturyLink and further delay its ability to help Minnesota meet the aggressive universal broadband service goals established by the legislature.” The carrier reminded the PUC that Minnesota law requires the agency “to encourage 'economically efficient deployment of infrastructure' and to act 'in a competitively neutral regulatory manner.'"
Middendorf’s recommendation ignores the record, “makes only passing reference to the goals of maintaining just and reasonable rates and encouraging economically efficient deployment of infrastructure, and ignores the State’s broadband goals and the goal of encouraging fair and reasonable competition,” CenturyLink wrote. Instead, the ALJ "adopts previously unarticulated measures of service quality and focuses significant attention on anecdotal evidence to recommend that the Commission find CenturyLink in violation of two extremely broad rules (Minnesota Rules 7810.3300 and 7810.5000) that set forth no specific requirements and one rule (Minnesota Rules 7810.5800) that sets forth an 'objective' that the Company has acknowledged it does not currently meet." The remedies appear to be based on words by Minnesota Commerce Department "witnesses with no practical experience with telecommunications service,” it added.
Centurylink's service-quality failures are well documented in the proceeding, responded Conti, the assistant AG. “Some of CenturyLink’s most landline-dependent telephone customers have reported repeated outages, emergency service disruptions, and other serious performance issues with their wireline telephone service."
"CenturyLink is the carrier of last resort for some of Minnesota’s most wireline telephone service dependent citizens,” noted the assistant AG. “Through its rules, the Commission has outlined a standard of service every Minnesotan can expect to receive from its telephone carrier. The Report clearly documents CenturyLink’s failure to meet this standard and recommends concrete steps to restore appropriate services to Minnesotans who rely on a landline to call 9-1-1, communicate with family and friends, and other communication needs.”