Level 3 blames Internet slowdowns on Technica

Mon Mar 24 16:05:28 UTC 2014

On 03/23/2014 11:08 PM, Frank Bulk wrote:
> Not sure which rural LECs are exempt from competition.
This is a quagmire;but it boils down to "if the FCC says they're exempt, 
then they're exempt and have a 'rural monopoly'" (there's a lot of 
caselaw and a number of FCC Report and Orders (and further Report and 
Orders and Notices of Rulemaking and Public Notices and the like) on the 
subject, but it goes back essentially to the definition found in 47 USC 
§ 153(37) of a "Rural Telephone Company").

Just being covered by an NECA (National Exchange Carriers Association) 
tariff doesn't automatically grant this, since there is a subsection in 
47 CFR § 61 dealing with "Rural CLEC's" and their exemptions.  This 
landscape is changing constantly, and it has been quite some time since 
I've traced the threads in the various R&O's and PN's from the FCC on 
the subject; it would take probably a full week just to get up to date 
on the current state of things, since it's been five years since I last 
looked at it.

This is one case where you would have to ask a good communications 
attorney to know for sure.