WASHINGTON—A new federal pre-emption battle has broken out at the Federal Communications Commission between two small wireless companies and Qwest Corp. The small carriers are asking telecom regulators to intervene by barring five state public utility commissions from further involvement in interconnection arbitration problems with Qwest.
Autotel and Western Radio, small wireless carriers in Nevada and Oregon, respectively, claim Qwest has refused to negotiate interconnection agreements with them. The firms complain they have no remedy in federal district court because the PUCs in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah have not approved interconnection agreements. Thus, there is no agreement for the court to review.
Moreover, Western Radio told the FCC in one filing, “There are no detailed issues for the state commission (in Oregon) to resolve because Qwest has refused to identify open issues during the mandatory negotiation period and failed to raise any open issues in its response to the petition for arbitration.”
Western Radio and Autotel make the same arguments in the other purportedly unsuccessful attempts to have PUCs arbitrate interconnection accords between themselves and Qwest in the other four states.
Qwest tells a different story, claiming PUCs in some states conducted arbitration leading to interconnection agreements approved by all sides. But later, in some instances, Qwest said Western Radio and Autotel either returned to state PUCs to seek another round of arbitration, or filed suit in federal court, or refused to sign interconnection accords mediated by the states. As such, Qwest urged the FCC to reject all the pre-emption petitions.
“Pre-emption is inappropriate because Autotel is bound by each state commission’s prior arbitration decision,” Qwest stated.
Additional filings in the interconnection spat were expected to be submitted to the FCC late last week.
The FCC, facing heavy lobbying by the four national mobile-phone carriers and consumer groups, has been wrestling with federal pre-emption issues related to wireless billing practices. A federal appeals court last month turned back pre-emption provisions in a 2005 FCC truth-in-billing decision.
