In a very inside-baseball proceeding (the Jurisdictional Separations and Referral to the Federal-State Joint Board) that has not gotten any attention, the FCC has requested an 18 month extension to examine the cost allocation rules that are applied to revenues and expenses of AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink’s state utilities, which they control.
The problem is that the FCC has been taking extensions in the same, exact proceeding for 16 years (which we will discuss). This takes the phrase “kicking the bucket down the road” to a whole new level of government cover-up.
And this proceeding is critical. In a meeting scheduled for April 20th, 2017, the FCC is steam-rollering and doing a hatchet job on upcoming proposals that will be discussed. From Broadband Data Services, (BDS), to the shutting off the copper networks, or the IP Transition, the FCC plans to gut all customer protections, block competition, and harm all businesses that rely on these data services, (formerly called “Special Access”).
So, how can the agency, then, attempt to shut down and delay examination of the accounting rules that are directly tied to these other items?
On April 17th, 2017 we filed comments with the FCC to start immediate audits and investigations of the cross-subsidies of the incumbent phone companies, AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink. As we document, Verizon’s own financial accounting revealed massive manipulations of the financial books created by the FCC’s “Big Freeze” and negligence. But this is happening in every state because the FCC rules are federal, not state-based.