FCC Defers Verizon Rhode Island Forbearance Decision

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) will have to wait until May 15 to find out whether the FCC will grant its forbearance request for regulatory relief in Rhode Island.

Feb. 14 marks the 12-month deadline for the petition. FCC commissioners had to decide whether to approve, deny or delay the request another 90 days; if they hadn’t acted by midnight of Feb. 14, the request automatically would have taken effect.

And that would have had huge implications for the competitive telecom industry.

Verizon is asking that it be relieved from abiding by a number of regulations in all of Rhode Island. For example, it wants out from under rules including loop and transport unbundling obligations; dominant carrier tariffing requirements; price cap regulations; and certain interconnection and open network architecture regulations. The behemoth phone company also hopes to free itself of rules overseeing the process of acquiring lines, discontinuing services, assigning or transferring control and acquiring affiliates.

Understandably, CLECs oppose the Verizon forbearance request, which happens to be a near refile of the 6-MSA petition the FCC rejected in December 2007.

The FCC is allowed to vote on the Rhode Island forbearance request before May 15.

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