II. Background
In March 1998, Pacific filed a Notice of Intent to File a § 271 Application (NOI) and a Draft § 271 Application (Draft Application) in conjunction with its responses to 161 questions eliciting quantitatively-based information on the state of local competition in California and Pacific's compliance with 47 U.S.C. § 271. Pacific made its filing in response to a ruling granting a group of CLECs' request that the California Public Utilities Commission (Commission or CPUC) establish additional procedures to facilitate its consultative role with the FCC. Over the next two months, the CLECs and other interested parties filed comments on
the NOI, Draft Application and Pacific's quantitative responses, and Pacific replied.
From mid-April through mid-May 1998, the CPUC's Telecommunications Division staff (TD staff or staff) held separate weekly informal meetings with Pacific, a group of CLECs and other interested parties reviewing over 16,500 pages of documents that supported and challenged the Draft Application. Guided by staff's initial report on the central issues and problems that emerged from the Draft Application (the Initial Staff Report or ISR), the CPUC convened five weeks1 of collaborative workshops with Pacific, staff and interested CLECs.
Assessing the outcome of the collaborative sessions and parties' comments on its notes, staff issued its second major evaluative report (the Final Staff Report or FSR) in October 1998. Staff put forth the report as "a comprehensive list of corrective actions most likely to aid Pacific in complying with § 271 requirements." On December 17, 1998, the CPUC issued D.98-12-069, which adopted and modified the FSR, in order to list what we hoped would be "a solid blueprint" for a "future 271 request that this Commission could earnestly and enthusiastically support." (D.98-12-069 mimeo. at 71.)
Included in the blueprint were a myriad of technical requirements and the directive that Pacific's Operations Support System (OSS) should undergo independent third party testing. Pacific submitted an OSS Test Plan in January 1999. Staff, with the assistance of a consultant,2 substantially revised the plan during the spring. In early June 1999,3 staff conducted an informal collaborative workshop with Pacific and interested CLECs to address technical issues related to the Test Plan. Parties filed comments on the draft plan to validate/assess the operational readiness, performance and capability of Pacific to provide through specified interfaces, pre-ordering, ordering, provisioning, maintenance & repair (M&R) and billing OSS functionality to the CLECs. Following review of the comments, the assigned Commissioner issued the Master Test Plan (MTP)4 in July 1999.
General Electric Global eXchange Services (GXS) was selected as the Test Generator (TG), and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) was chosen to be the Test Administrator (TAM) and Technical Advisor (TA). As TAM, CGE&Y built the interface between GXS and Pacific. The test was completed with the release of Cap Gemini's final report in late October 2000. CGE&Y and GXS released their final reports on the Pacific OSS Test in December 2000. In January 2001, the CPUC convened technical workshops on the reports. Pacific and the interested parties filed opening and reply comments on the reports on March 2 and March 9, 2001, respectively.
Pacific submitted compliance filings in support of demonstrating its satisfaction of the fourteen checklist items in July and August 1999, January, March, August, October and December 2000, June 2001 and September 2001. It submitted its California Pub. Util. Code § 709.2 showings in July 1999 and June 2001. Interested parties responded to each submission.
On April 4, 5, and 12, 2001, the assigned Commissioner and Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for this proceeding convened all-party meetings to address the competitors' contention that Pacific failed to resolve OSS/Local Service Center related CLEC operational problems it caused, and that these unresolved problems represented true obstacles to competition in the local telephone market. During the hearings, 11 CLECs5 appeared and formally presented the systemic operational problems they had experienced with Pacific. In response, Pacific demonstrated how it resolved such problems. Pursuant to a post-hearing ruling, Pacific updated a staff-created matrix each month6 to reflect the current resolution status of each operational issue listed, and distributed that update to staff and the CLECs for review and comment.
On November 5 and 14, 2001, public participation hearings were held in San Francisco and Los Angeles. On December 3-5, 2001, the assigned Commissioner and ALJ entertained oral arguments on issues related to compliance with Pub. Util. Code § 709.2. Following the arguments, the assigned Commissioner issued a ruling imposing "a ban on any and all ex parte communications" in this proceeding.7
On March 11, 2002, ORA filed identical motions8 in this docket and the docket considering the review of the regulatory framework under which Pacific operates, the New Regulatory Framework (NRF).9 ORA sought to lift the suspension on Pacific's sharing mechanism under NRF, and urged this Commission to "suspend processing" Pacific's application for Section 271 approval as an apparent sanction for behavior of Pacific's in the NRF Review proceeding that it deemed anticompetitive, dilatory and defiant. In its comments on the DD, ORA renews its motion and joins with TURN in insisting that its presentation in R.01-09-001/I.01-09-002 be transplanted into this proceeding without any further examination. Pacific opposed the motion. This docket cannot and will not be the home of every telecommunications proceeding pending before this Commission. As appropriate, we are addressing the NRF Review directly in its designated docket, and not in this proceeding. We deny ORA's motion.
1 From July 22, 1998 through August 25, 1998.
2 Telecordia
3 From June 7, 1999 through June 15, 1999.
4 Version 3.0.
5 Allegiance, (Allegiance), Advanced TelCom, Inc., dba Advanced TelCom Group (ATG), AT&T Communications of California, Inc. (AT&T), Cox California Telcom Inc. (Cox), New Edge Network, Inc. (New Edge), Pac-West Telecomm Inc. (Pac-West), Rhythms Link, Inc. (Rhythms), Sprint Communications Company, L.P. (Sprint), WorldCom, Inc. (WorldCom), XO California, Inc. (XO), and Z-Tel Communications, Inc. (Z-Tel).
6 Beginning on July 2, 2001 until the present.
7 The ban was temporarily lifted during the issuance of the draft interim decision on unbundled network element prices, D.02-05-042.
8 "Emergency Motion of the Office of Ratepayer Advocates to Lift the Suspension on Pacific Bell Telephone Company's Sharing Mechanism and Suspend Processing Pacific Bell Telephone Company's Application for Section 271 Approval."
9 R.01-09-001/I.01-09-002.
