III. Background

On January 7, 2000, Covad filed its petition for arbitration with Roseville to establish an agreement to govern the rates, terms, and conditions for interconnection and related agreements between the parties. Because Covad requested commencement of negotiations with Roseville on June 14, 1999, the final date for filing its petition for arbitration should have been on November 22, 1999.¹ However, after several months of negotiations, Covad and Roseville entered into a November 19, 1999 letter agreement to extend the arbitration window by resetting the date Covad commenced negotiations with Roseville from June 14, 1999 to August 1, 1999. By this letter agreement, the deadline for filing a petition for arbitration was extended to January 7, 2000. Covad then filed its petition for arbitration on January 7, 2000.

Section 252(b)(3) of the Act and Rule 3.6 of the Commission's Resolution ALJ-178 require a response for arbitration to be filed within 25 days after the petition for arbitration is filed. Given that the petition for arbitration was filed on January 7, 2000, Roseville should have filed its response for arbitration no later than February 1, 2000. However, Covad did not serve Roseville with a copy of the petition for arbitration on the same day that the petition for arbitration was filed with the Docket office as required by the Commission's Rules. Roseville filed a motion on January 14, 2000 to extend its response date on the basis that it did not become aware of the petition until it was noticed on the Commission's Daily Calendar of January 13, 2000.

Subsequently, Roseville and Covad entered into a stipulated agreement to extend the response date from February 1, 2000 to February 8, 2000. The parties entered into this stipulated agreement without prejudice to future agreements to extend the statutory time periods within which the Commission must resolve this matter. To accommodate the scheduling needs of the parties, Roseville and Covad agreed to the following milestone dates.

ACTIVITY	DATE
Negotiation Request Deemed Received by Roseville	August 8, 1999
Petition for Arbitration Deemed Filed	January 14, 2000
Response to Petition for Arbitration Due	February 8, 2000
Joint Statement of Unresolved Issues Due	February 15, 2000
Commission Conclusion of Unresolved Issues	May 8, 2000

On January 19, 2000, this stipulated agreement was submitted to the Commission's Law and Motion Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for consideration and approval. On January 27, 2000, the Law and Motion issued a ruling approving the parties' stipulated agreement. Consistent with this stipulated agreement, Roseville timely filed its response to the petition for arbitration, which included additional issues subject to arbitration.

On February 15, 2000, Roseville and Covad timely filed their joint statement of unresolved issues. These issues, which numbered seven, were subsequently reduced to five at the initial arbitration conference and hearing held on February 24, 2000. Because Roseville and Covad were actively negotiating the remaining five issues, the assigned ALJ granted the parties additional time until March 13, 2000 to resolve the issues and to file a final mark-up of the agreement and a revised joint statement of issues. As part of this time extension, the parties agreed to extend the final date that the Commission must conclude this arbitration proceeding from May 8, 2000 to June 7, 2000. The arbitration conference and hearing was then continued to March 21, 2000.

The revised joint statement narrowed the arbitration issues to three. These issues were forward-looking economic cost, unbundled network element (UNE) recurring and nonrecurring charges, and collocation recurring and nonrecurring charges. An arbitration conference and hearing was held on March 21 and 22, 2000 to receive evidence on the remaining issues. At the conclusion of the March 22, 2000 arbitration conference and hearing, the parties agreed to further extend the June 7, 2000 agreed upon conclusion date to June 22, 2000. This enabled the arbitrator to provide parties additional time until April 17, 2000, to submit briefs, and resulted in a change in issuance of the arbitrator's reports and interested parties' comments on the arbitrator's report. Briefs were filed on April 17, 2000, and the matter was submitted for preparation of the Draft Arbitrator's Report (DAR) which was filed and served on April 26, 2000.

Comments on the DAR were filed and served on May 8, 2000 by Roseville, Covad and jointly by Electric Lightwave, Inc., Nextlink California, Inc., and New Edge Network, Inc., doing business as, New Edge Networks. The final arbitrator's report was filed and served on May 16, 2000.

On May 23, 2000, pursuant to Rule 4.2.1 of Resolution ALJ-178, parties filed a complete agreement incorporating the arbitrated results. Concurrently, parties each filed a statement identifying the criteria in the Act, and the Commission's Rules by which the negotiated and arbitrated portions of the agreement are to be tested. The parties also stated whether the negotiated and arbitrated portions pass or fail those tests, and whether or not the agreement should be approved or rejected by the Commission.