WASHINGTON-The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the scope of local telecom competition for years to come and possibly influence wireless policy in the near future.
The central issue in Iowa Utilities Board v. FCC is whether the FCC can set-as national policy-rules governing the terms and conditions of how new competitors connect to monopoly landline telephone networks dominated by the Baby Bells and GTE Corp.
AT&T Corp. and other long-distance companies that want to enter local markets support federal rules for interconnection, resale and pricing. The Baby Bells and state regulators insist such oversight is the purview of public utility commissions.
Because there is a wireless carve-out in FCC interconnection rules, the case will not directly impact the wireless carriers per se.
However, the more wireline interconnection policy remains mired in controversy and the longer local residential competition is kept on hold, the stronger the argument may become to further deregulate wireless carriers to encourage local competition, a goal embraced by Congress in the 1996 telecom act.
On a separate matter, the high court last week rejected Northeast Cellular Telephone Co.’s appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of Portland Cellular Partnership.
The FCC took back a Portland, Maine, cellular license granted to Portland Cellular and awarded it to Northeast Cellular in 1991 after Northeast successfully challenged Portland financial qualifications in court.
Portland won the cellular franchise back from Northeast after getting an amendment attached to the Paperwork Reduction Act in 1995 that clarified a rule the FCC violated in granting the license to Northeast.
