On August 15^th, the FCC finally got approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to require special access customers and providers to provide data in its investigation into ILEC special access rates. The OMB made some modifications to the required data that it expects will ease some of the burden on data responders. In response to the modifications, the FCC is expected to quickly issue an order with the new data requirements. Moreover, the Commission indicated that it will require the data to be submitted this fall, with an actual due date pending. We will detail the important changes below, but first some background:

Background

The special access data request originated on August 22, 2012, when the FCC released an Order in Docket 05-25 temporarily suspending new grants of special access pricing flexibility to ILECs, while it conducted a market analysis to determine how it should regulate ILEC special access prices going forward. The Commission stated at that time that it would release a comprehensive special access data request to begin the analysis. The data request was released December 18, 2012. Along with the data request, the Commission issued a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) seeking industry comments on the effectiveness of the data and how to it to develop new rules for pricing special access services. 

For more details of the data required, please see our October 13, 2012 blog.

The data request is being handled by the Commission’s Wireline Bureau. That Bureau will determine when the data is due and if any additional modifications are needed as the analysis proceeds.   

In response to intense industry lobbying, the FCC issued an Order on September 18, 2013 clarifying and somewhat narrowing the data request. The details of those changes can be found in our October 10, 2013 blog.

OMB Data Modifications

Year for Which Data Required

The Commission originally required responders to provide data for 2010 and 2012. OMB now requires that data be provided for only a single calendar year, and that should be the most recent year for which data exists (i.e., 2013).

Special Access Purchasers that Must Provide Data

The Special Access Data Collection Order originally stated that all purchasers of dedicated service must supply information as part of the data collection. A purchaser was defined as a competitive provider or an end user including businesses, institutional, or government entities that purchase communication services for their own purposes and do not resell such service.  

The Commission later narrowed that definition to exclude from supplying special access data, entities that are not common carrier purchasers of special access. The OMB now narrows the definition further to exclude entities that purchased less than $5 million in Dedicated Services in 2013.

Request for Proposals

Originally, CLECs were required to provide information not only for RFPs for which it was selected as the winning bidder, but were also required to provide information regarding the five largest (by number of connections) RFPs for which it submitted unsuccessful bids in 2010 and 2012. OMB now requires CLECs to only provide data for RFPs in which they were the winning carrier. Carriers can supply information on unsuccessful bids on a voluntary basis.

Data Which is Now Voluntary

The OMB eases the requirements on special access purchasers by making some information that was previously mandatory, now voluntary. 

This includes expenditures for each type of special access circuit purchased through an ILEC or CLEC tariff or contract and the tariff that was used to purchase each circuit. 

Purchasers are only requited to provide expenditures by bandwidth if they normally keep such details in the normal course of doing business.  

OMB makes some additional changes. They can be found at the following link: http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=201311-3060-001#

OMB anticipates that with its changes, the number of respondents to the data request will drop from 6,400 to 4,000. It also anticipates that the hours required to respond to the data request will drop from 155 to 134 per respondent. Still a massive effort will be required to provide the data.

It is important that all carriers get ready to supply their special access data later this year. While clearly large carriers such as price cap ILECs and large CLECs will have the expertise and the personnel to effectively provide the data, it will surely be more problematic for smaller carriers and cable companies that may not be that familiar with special access terminology. While the $5 million cutoff for participation will help, there are going to be a lot of carriers who will have a short time to learning exactly what they are required to provide and then collect that data on a timely basis. It should be a very interesting autumn!

By Andrew Regitsky, President, Regitsky & Associates

Do you need help compiling data for the FCC's collection? Check out CCMI's CABSdb PRO database containing switched and special access rate elements and historical data for automated look ups and reporting