II. Background
Pacific Bell Telephone Company d/b/a SBC California (SBC) filed its application to initiate a generic proceeding to amend the existing ICAs between SBC and various CLECs on July 28, 2005. In orders issued in 2003 and 2005, known, respectively, as the Triennial Review Order (TRO)1 and the Triennial Review Remand Order (TRRO),2 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) eliminated or restricted the unbundling obligations for numerous Unbundled Network Elements (UNEs). Because the bulk of SBC's ICAs were negotiated and arbitrated before the TRO and TRRO were issued, those agreements for the most part do not embody the significant changes to the unbundling rules reflected in those FCC orders.
In the wake of the TRRO, this Commission issued the TRO Closure Order, which closed its TRO proceeding. The Commission also directed SBC to negotiate amendments to its ICAs with CLECs in order to implement the TRRO and to initiate a consolidated proceeding to resolve any disputed issues. Accordingly, SBC filed its application.
We reiterate the September 23, 2005 Ruling by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) that any carrier with an interconnection agreement with SBC that has a dispute over the change-of-law provisions related to the FCC's TRO and TRRO orders will be subject to the outcome of this proceeding. The Commission does not intend to conduct individual arbitrations to implement change-of-law provisions relating to the two FCC orders. SBC was required to send a copy of the Ruling to each carrier with whom it has an interconnection agreement so that any carrier that wanted to could take an active role in the proceeding.
The CLECs filed a consolidated response to SBC's application on September 16, 2005. That filing included a markup of the disputed issues in the amendment. Following a series of telephone conference calls with the parties to the proceeding, the assigned ALJ issued a Ruling on October 6, 2005 that established a procedural schedule for the proceeding.
The proceeding will proceed in three separate tracks. The first track involves disputed issues that do not require hearings. Parties filed Opening Briefs on those issues on October 28, 2005, and Reply Briefs on November 14, 2005. Those issues are the subject of this decision.
A separate procedural schedule was adopted for the Batch Hot Cut portion of the proceeding. Finally, one issue area was set aside for hearing to resolve disputed issues of fact. That issue, the rate for Routine Network Modifications (RNM) and the RNM parity issue was addressed in arbitration hearings November 28-30 and December 1, 2005. Opening Briefs were filed on RNM issues on January 9, 2006 and Reply Briefs, January 25, 2006. Those issues will be addressed in a subsequent Commission order.
1 In the Matter of Review of the Section 251 Unbundling Obligations of Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers, Report and Order and Order on Remand and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 18 FCC Rcd. 16978, FCC 03-36 (2003)(TRO).
2 In the Matter of Unbundled Access to Network Elements; Review of the Section 251 Unbundling Obligations of Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers, Order on Remand, 20 FCC Rcd 2533, FCC 04-290 (rel. Feb. 4, 2005) (TRRO).
