Cal. PUC said Verizon unilaterally couldn’t change existing inter...
Cal. PUC said Verizon unilaterally couldn’t change existing interconnection agreements to reflect new FCC rulings unless contracts had explicit provision for amendment due to changes in laws or regulations. PUC’s ruling addressed CLEC complaints about letter Verizon sent to…
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CLECs in May announcing rate caps on reciprocal compensation for Internet-bound local traffic, consistent with last spring’s FCC ISP remand order that set caps on ISP call compensation and established 36-month transition to bill-and-keep. Since FCC didn’t explicitly preempt preexisting agreements, PUC said it still had jurisdiction over reciprocal compensation disputes in interconnection agreements that were in force before effective date of FCC order. PUC (in Case 00-02-005) said that when interconnection agreements lacked change-of- law provisions, parties remained subject to existing ISP reciprocal compensation arrangements until pact expired. Meanwhile, PUC administrative law judge proposed Pacific Bell and Verizon be required to pay new type of performance failure penalties directly to CLECs in addition to any other wholesale service quality penalties carriers might owe. Payments would be owed to CLECs whose customers received worse service than incumbent’s own retail customers. Plan (Case 97-10-016) would require establishing explicit performance benchmarks where incumbent’s performance for its own customers could be compared to performance for CLEC customers. ALJ said such penalties would provide strong incentive to incumbents to provide wholesale-retail service parity, and suggested 6-month trial of plan.