Industry Won't Bless Ohio Draft Abandonment Rules

Some proposed rules for withdrawing basic local exchange service (BLES) could be unlawful, phone and cable companies commented Wednesday. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) is weighing draft rules in docket 14-1554-TP-ORD to implement a 2019 state law and allow ILECs to forego carrier of last resort obligations (see 2108250050). The law lets ILECs withdraw or abandon BLES in exchanges where they get FCC permission to withdraw the interstate portion, provided they give 120 days' notice to affected customers, who can petition PUCO for relief if they can’t find a “reasonable and comparatively priced service.” AT&T said PUCO’s proposal contains “fatal defects,” warning that the commission can't go beyond what the legislature required. One problem is a proposal to add a 30-day notice requirement for sole providers of voice service, which the legislature didn't require and is overbroad because voice includes more than BLES, AT&T said. It means VoIP could be improperly included, commented the Ohio Cable Telecommunications Association: The law didn't authorize extending authority over voice providers. The Ohio Telecom Association said PUCO would exceed its statutory authority if it expands the law’s definition of “reasonable and comparatively priced service” to say that a service “is presumptively deemed competitively priced, subject to rebuttal,” if the rate doesn’t exceed either the ILEC’s BLES rate by more than 20% or the FCC’s urban rate floor. The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel and other consumer advocates said PUCO’s proposed definition of the same phrase is “vague regarding which threshold would apply for determining that a service is presumptively deemed ‘comparatively’ priced.” Require customer notices to be clear and mailed separately from phone bills, advocates said.