Federal Communications Commission fcc 18-74 Before the Federal Communications Commission

Retaining Current Calculation of Waiting Period for Short Term Network Changes

60. 
    We retain the current rule that calculates the waiting period for short-term network change notices from the date the Commission issues its public notice after an incumbent LEC files its network change notification, and we decline to calculate the waiting period from the date of filing.²⁰² We agree with commenters that urge us to retain this rule to ensure sufficient and complete public notice of short-term network changes,²⁰³ given the already short 10-day waiting period.²⁰⁴ Commencing the waiting period at the same time as an incumbent LEC files its network change notification, as proposed by AT&T and supported by others,²⁰⁵ fails to provide Commission staff an opportunity to first review the notice for compliance with our rules or for unintentional errors, potentially “depriving notice recipients of information they need to accommodate the network change.”²⁰⁶
    
61. 
    We reject ITTA’s assertion that because the Commission retained a distinction between copper retirement notice rules and other types of network change notice rules,²⁰⁷ this difference alone constitutes a basis for deviating from how we calculate the commencement of the waiting period for each.²⁰⁸ The record demonstrates that the reasons we declined to revise the calculation of the waiting period for copper retirement notices²⁰⁹ similarly warrant retaining the long-standing way in which we calculate the waiting period for short-term network change notices as well.²¹⁰ Reducing the already-short waiting period further limits the notice to interconnecting carriers, affecting their ability to accommodate the planned network change or to object, if necessary, to the timing of the planned network change.²¹¹ Staff has as much need to “routinely contact filers to clarify or correct information contained in filings or to add required information that is missing”²¹² for short-term network change notices as for copper retirements.²¹³
    
62. 
    Finally, we decline to adopt a requirement that the Commission release a public notice within a specified period of time after an incumbent LEC files a short-term network change notice.²¹⁴ In the Wireline Infrastructure Order, the Commission found that commenters had not identified “any specific instance in which a planned copper retirement had to be delayed due to the timing of our release of the relevant public notice.”²¹⁵ Similarly, commenters here do not identify any instance in which a carrier has had to delay planned network changes because of the Commission’s failure to timely release a public notice after a LEC has filed its short-term network change notice. We therefore decline to adopt a rule to solve a non-existent problem.
    

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