SBC Pushes to Keep Pact Details Confidential
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Still trying to keep secret a wholesale contract with a rival, SBC Communications Inc. submitted the deal “under protest” Wednesday to Michigan regulators and asked them to keep it confidential pending rulings on the company’s legal challenges.
SBC has petitions pending before the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Federal Communications Commission demanding that deals with rivals over leasing SBC lines and equipment remain secret. It is asking the FCC to preempt the state’s action.
In a letter to the state agency, SBC said it was submitting one copy of the contract under compulsion from the state’s “unlawful order” to disclose the deal by Wednesday night. However, the company emphasized that it was not filing the contract for state review, approval and public inspection under the mandates of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Earlier, SBC and small competitor Sage Telecom Inc. filed amendments to existing agreements with the Michigan agency, said Commissioner Robert Nelson.
SBC said it was also filing those amendments in California, Kansas and other states where SBC is the dominant local carrier.
The companies asked that the petitions SBC filed with the state and the FCC be decided first before any decision is made on releasing the contract to public inspection. SBC called the state action an “unlawful order.”
The Telecom Act’s filing mandate is a safeguard recognizing the unequal bargaining power the Bells have over small companies to dictate terms. Regulators, under the law, are to look for terms and conditions that discriminate against other carriers or are anti-competitive.
SBC maintains that agreements it is reaching are outside the scope of the act and therefore not subject to its provisions. The company said, however, that some terms are covered by the act, and those are being filed as amendments to existing pacts.
The FCC, meantime, did not take any action on SBC’s request from late Monday to preempt states from enforcing the Telecom Act’s disclosure provisions. SBC had hoped the commission could act before the deadline in Michigan.
The SBC-Sage pact is the first under an industrywide effort, prodded by the FCC and the Bush administration, to reach negotiated deals in the wake of a March 2 federal appeals court decision throwing out FCC phone competition rules.
