to obtain reasonable rates on the interstate side but even more specifically on the interest state side the case before you involved in it were from the federal communications commission extending what was known as a separations freeze which basically froze certain factors that are used to allocate costs between the in trust state in interstate jurisdictions many of these factors were initially frozen in two thousand and one home and they were supposed to only be in place for five years there have been seven extensions the breezes currently been in place for s concern appears to have been the idea that the freeze compelled state regulators in forming their functions to follow the jurisdictional separations has frozen but at least so far as the price caps carriers who appear to be the firms selling to the individual have these bad after a lie on because no one will be compelling the firms to produce them and the commission says yeah that's right s in order to maintain regulatory burdens that may produce some permission helpful to state commissions but if not if the price cap carriers are not b by these information generating forces what what and what is the basis of your claim that the commission assumed that the price cap carriers  for purposes of interstate in prostate regulation were governed by those factors at all if you take a look at paragraph eighteen of the freeze or go in now speaking of right it did knowledge is that separations is still relevant to the commission i am for the service rather certain purposes right and they speak to how the states you separations information for various things including interest state paragraph eighteen we commission uses these only for carriers subject rate of return regulation the commission the f c c does but it goes on to note that the states use it if the with respect to the price cap carriers the feds have withdrawn from the field and it's up to the state subject as you argue at some point in your papers subject to percent of corporations operations expense in broad new york alone is one billion one hundred million dollars a year if they if they wish to reduce that factor and what the commission has never set express that the states are free now from the compulsion into twenty one statutory preemption which poses a problem only when there's been a voluntary exercise of power  order if you read this they don't say you can change the factors they don't say it doesn't say that they also say we're not going to oblige the carriers to make these calculations and all but the states can use the well that's today choice isn't the whole point of separation that the regulatory scheme that applies to interstate calls is different from the regulation that applies to interest you can be that's why you separate in the immediacy and things interesting leigh the situation we're kind of arguing about here reporting that require states to follow the federal rules here the so question is is there a clear enough in an ambiguous with wall of the f c c under so that to problem it's not clear at all to me that that was a business that required to be held out in the forbearance order itself nobody did in the freeze or because we were telling the commission that the states were still  and could not change back and he disagreed with his it said it's irrelevant but they never said yes they can change factors that's why you're wrong if you read the forbearance orders and if you read to freeze orders they never say we have completely withdrawn and it makes sense if you look at that at the forbearance or the commission did not forbear from part thirty six so part see the revenue side of the part thirty six that's expressly stated in no uniform parachute so how can you completely withdraw from the field if you're still keeping it part of the rules now these were the revenue rules lockable but you can't completely withdraw regulatory assessments and then we explain how the same situation applies to intrust state price cap regime for thirty six years about cost revenues ended identifies the syllabus and the commission i don't think so it doesn't necessarily follow i think you can eat just as easily read the forbearance order to say we're going to allow the states to invoke state law to require price tag carriers to obtain to provide information so that our formulas  so our former yes but why but you don't point me to any any actual language that says that that's in that period period good point twenty nine to thirty four in the forbearance orders and you also have to understand creature apart thirty six dollars and yet the commission has gone down the road this court has reviewed some of the b d s orders where the commission uses the ten percent rule on prices and facilities and services are an issue before the f c c it least informally operate as if all of this still applies in some fashion and until it is absolutely clear that the states are free we cannot go to the states and say change the facts because i mean that they will tell us just like maine did that we're back i mean just to argue and doubt that you're completely right on let's further assume that an party sex requirements we will accept that representation we will embrace it we will lose on the merits on this issue so long as it is presidential and well spelled out so that we can take this to the stage we will be satisfied with that we will are willing to go to the stakes but we do not believe that under these orders the states have yet been set free if council says they have and  you guys are really completely free result of that you are breeder who got it right i'm not at liberty to talk about discussions i've had with state regulators but i can back to maine and tell them try again i see my time is up thank you very much if there is uncertainty about the extent to which states are bound i don't think that goes to the petitioner standing here i think they have a burden to establish their harmed and they haven't met that burden sort of to decide if they're if they want more clarity about that i think the mechanism for that is to go to the commission and petition for a declaration to make it patently clear that this is the case that being said i agree with her whims that i think almost the only reading of the eighteen to order is that states are not bound but if there's  any if they want any more clarity as a lawyer and putting them i can only go by what to the orders i think if they want something more clear than what's already written what they should do is a petition for declan closer to a ruling but i would like to make another point that i think goes to this case directly on standing even if it were the case that they are harmed in the way they allege is price cap consumers we have a i think a very clear redress ability problem and i'm just flag that for you i think you probably understand our point but this is just an extension of the freeze of these categorizations if this order were vacated the freeze lapsed that wouldn't rewrite the rules it would simply go back t if the if the remedy removes an obstacle to the course that the petitioner seek and would it not be the case that throwing the separations this would move the ball for them at all i guess one way to think of this is the freeze is not really an obstacle to separations for the freezes makes it easier on parties wall difficult policy questions of separations form or sorted out but the fact of the freeze is not the reason the reform has not happened and removing the freeze doesn't make it any more likely that will happen could you elaborate on that i mean one thing would be to show that the commission in some process has inquiries underway about the reform of that process will do this is part of it to the docket in this order joy board is rather remote well it's been frustrating for all parties including i'm sure the joint board up to this point but there is some i don't think that means we can talk or hands or write off the joint board but even if the joy board is not the obstacle let's say that the commission by itself is going to be right the walls and not wait on a recommendation i still don't think that there's a direct connection to the fact of the three you see and rewriting those rules it is this is these coordinating things happen to be resolved i think it's precisely correct some of these things happen resolve this if you look at this is sort of a twenty year process of rewriting the rules which govern wireline carriers there been some very big rulemaking some of which have been in this court about your character compensation universal service reform business data services a lot of those big pieces are now out of the way so these rules now have to be  revised in light of those changes that's exactly right the price gap issue is of course our biggest issue it is not the only issue we did express some concern about the rate of return here and we showed standing to deal with line service to their right it is an indirect or we're one step removed right from the rate of return care and the price cap carriers by definition are operating under price caps yes  and i guess one obvious problem with your argument would be they're bumping up against them without without showing a price cap carriers relevant to you or because there's without a showing that they have wiggle room the price cap is is there anything will change people i understand that and i'm standing similarly but i thought i thought we were talking st of the actual costs incurred by the rate of return characters well each each of the petitioners also has wireless service question if it is the case that the relevant price cap carriers are bouncing up against their cap that thick charging simply by cap rate and i didn't see anything in the record saying price cap here it is that we use cell phone providers and long distance carriers who pay switched access rates to the rate of return carriers and pass that through to us it is also because we a big chunk of our show our issues go away a big chunk not all of it is obviously much smaller we still have the impact on the rate of return carry we still do and i think we have standing to certainly the carriers the rate of return carriage of particular will have a burden we don't deny that the question is whether the burden outweighs the benefit and there is simply nothing that the f c c found  regarding the foregone benefits to consumers from continuing to extend the freeze really the only numbers in the case were all we showed it on a nationwide basis yes with ice cap included the consumer burden from continuing to freeze is somewhere between fourteen dollars and fifty three billion dollars a year and i submit to you it doesn't really i cannot conceive of a burden on many here we're talking about eighteen years already and it will be extended to twenty four dollars now if we understand that this is a complicated and we're not saying necessarily that if you were to vacate the commission it because mission would have to accept the old rules going back into effect the commission has the tools to say ok we will go effective extend the freeze for a short period of time and then all of our resources that are possible to solve this problem happen that's exactly the reason why courts has been to agree to find unreasonable the line because it's a reordering of agency receipt is in years but that's exactly how it turned out in one of the your money network element cases when this court vacated the union rules the commission was required to reinstate the rules it just didn't been vacated and then it fixed it so you know here's the bottom line and let's just be really fine in two thousand and one the commission rushed to freeze these factors in the reason to did so was because the coughing take change but there was an overall location to the interstate jurisdiction so they want to freeze it because they were overboard now the converse is true the states are the ones that are over byrd in the commission has not shown a real sense of urgency here to solve this problem because the states are the ones that are having to deal with these excessive rates that that turns our initial it does something and i will absolutely