During last Saturday’s meeting, CPUC Chairwoman and lone member Viola Alepuyo said, “I will review everything and when we come back on Nov. 29, I will issue my decision.”
Alepuyo said neither of the parties would be allowed to make any comments or provide arguments in the said meeting; however, she is expecting GTA Teleguam to provide a request for reconsideration on the regulatory costs incurred in Docket 12-02.
Alepuyo also set the record straight with regard to the recessed meeting. She said, “Under no circumstances do I want any of the parties to think that the only reason why — although what is happening today looks like a deferral of a decision — that the recess of this meeting is because of the offer to stay the proceedings in the Superior Court.”
Alepuyo told the two parties that the issues before the commission on Saturday were request for a stay not just in Docket 11-01, but also in Dockets 12-1 and 12-2, a stay of the judicial appeal proceedings, and in exchange to reopen Docket 11-1 Phase I-GTA Services LLC’s application for certificate of public convenience and necessity.
According to the hearing examiner Harry M. Boertzel’s report, IT&E was asserting that GTA’s request for interconnection was not a bona fide request because GTA did not yet possess authority to provide intrastate service in the CNMI; that it needed a certificate of public convenience and necessity before its request could be considered bona fide.
IT&E also asserts that until GTA possesses this certificate, it is not authorized and cannot provide telephone exchange or exchange access service.
It also argued that allowing a would-be competitor entrant to trigger the 120-day clock in §251(f)(1) to determine whether to lift IT&E rural exemption before it is even authorized to provide service would be illogical and would undermine the very protections that §251(f) is intended to confer upon rural providers.
For IT&E, it would cause irreparable harm due to the significant resources to be spent litigating fact-intensive issues within a very aggressive time frame, not knowing whether the requesting carrier will even be granted the certificate.
GTA’s request should not be considered bona fide until it possesses a non-contingent certificate to provide service.
Boertzel, in his report, stated that CPUC’s issuance of Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity on Oct. 27 to GTA and the latter’s subsequent renewal of request for interconnection services on Nov. 16 rendered IT&E’s arguments moot.
According to CPUC’s order on Oct. 27, it determined that GTA’s certification is consistent with the public interest and it possesses financial, technical, and managerial resources and abilities to provide the services for which it seeks certification.
Although GTA withdrew its assertion that IT&E’s rural exemption had been extinguished by P.L. 17-35, CPUC would continue to proceed with the inquiry.
GTA first made a request for interconnection on Aug. 19 to IT&E and served on the commission on Aug. 25, 2011.
On Nov. 16, GTA served IT&E and Boertzel with a renewed request for interconnection services.
Under §251(f)(1) of the Telecom Act of 1996, upon a determination that a request is bona fide, it will trigger a new 120-day clock that the inquiry must be conducted.
This, according to Boertzel’s report, rendered IT&E’s concerns moot on whether the shortened timeline would violate its right to due process in the inquiry.
The CPUC also made it known to the parties concerned that there is a possibility for the 120-day clock to be suspended on account of the expiry of the CPUC’s authority to act under PL 17-34:3 with no additional commissioners appointed or confirmed.
CPUC’s authority to act ceases on Jan. 30, 2012.
