2572 Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS 

COMMISSION 

47 CFR Part 69 

[WC Docket No. 05–25; RM–10593; FCC 12– 

153] 

Special Access for Price Cap Local 

Exchange Carriers; AT&T Corporation 

Petition for Rulemaking To Reform 

Regulation of Incumbent Local 

Exchange Carrier Rates for Interstate 

Special Access Services 

AGENCY: Federal Communications 

Commission. 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: In this document, the 

Commission continues the process of 

reviewing its special access rules to 

ensure that they reflect the state of 

competition today and promote 

competition, investment, and access to 

dedicated communications services 

businesses across the country rely on 

every day to deliver their products and 

services to American consumers. The 

Report and Order initiates a 

comprehensive data collection and 

specifies the nature of the data to be 

collected and the scope of respondents. 

An initial version of the data collection 

is attached to the Report and Order as 

an appendix; the Report and Order 

delegates authority to the Commission’s 

Wireline Competition Bureau to review 

and modify the collection to implement 

the requirements of the Report and 

Order. 

DATES: Effective March 12, 2013. The 

information collection and 

recordkeeping requirements contained 

in section III and appendix A of the 

document are not effective until they are 

approved by the Office of Management 

and Budget. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Jamie Susskind, Wireline Competition 

Bureau, Pricing Policy Division, (202) 

418–1520 or (202) 418–0484 (TTY), or 

via email at Jamie.Susskind@fcc.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a 

summary of the Commission’s Report 

and Order in WC Docket No. 05–25, 

RM–10593, FCC 12–153, adopted on 

December 11, 2012, and released on 

December 18, 2012. This summary 

should be read with its companion 

document, the Further Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) 

summary published elsewhere in this 

issue of the Federal Register. The 

summary is based on the public 

redacted version of the document, the 

full text of which is available 

electronically via the Electronic 

Comment Filing System at http:// 

fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/ or may be 

downloaded at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/ 

edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-12- 

153A1.pdf. The full text of this 

document is also available for public 

inspection during regular business 

hours in the Commission’s Reference 

Center, 445 12th Street SW., Room CY– 

A257, Washington, DC 20554. The 

complete text may be purchased from 

Best Copy and Printing, Inc., 445 12th 

Street SW., Room CY–B402, 

Washington, DC 20554. To request 

alternate formats for persons with 

disabilities (e.g. Braille, large print, 

electronic files, audio format, etc.) or 

reasonable accommodations for filing 

comments (e.g. accessible format 

documents, sign language interpreters, 

CARTS, etc.), send an email to 

fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Commission’s 

Consumer and Governmental Affairs 

Bureau at (202) 418–0530 (voice) or 

(202) 418–0432 (TTY). 

I. Introduction 

1. In the Report and Order and 

Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 

we continue the process of reviewing 

our special access rules to ensure that 

they reflect the state of competition 

today and promote competition, 

investment, and access to dedicated 

communications services businesses 

across the country rely on every day to 

deliver their products and services to 

American consumers. Specifically, we 

initiate a comprehensive data collection 

and seek comment on a proposal to use 

the data to evaluate competition in the 

market for special access services. 

II. Background 

A. Price Cap Regulation 

2. In 1991, the Commission 

implemented a system of price cap 

regulation by which the largest 

incumbent LECs (often referred to today 

as price cap LECs) establish their 

interstate access charges. Price cap 

regulation is a form of incentive 

regulation that seeks to ‘‘harness the 

profit-making incentives common to all 

businesses to produce a set of outcomes 

that advance the public interest goals of 

just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory 

rates, as well as a communications 

system that offers innovative, high 

quality services.’’ In contrast to rate-ofreturn regulation, which preceded price 

cap regulation and focuses on an 

incumbent LEC’s costs and fixes the 

profits an incumbent LEC may earn 

based on those costs, price cap 

regulation focuses primarily on the 

prices that an incumbent LEC may 

charge. The access charges of price cap 

LECs originally were set at levels based 

on the rates that existed at the time the 

LECs entered the price cap regime. 

Increases in their rates have, however, 

been limited over the course of price 

cap regulation by the Price Cap Index 

(PCI) that is adjusted annually pursuant 

to formulae set forth in Part 61 of our 

rules. 

3. The PCI is designed to limit the 

prices LECs charge for service. The PCI 

has three basic components: (1) A 

measure of inflation, i.e., the Gross 

Domestic Product (chain weighted) 

Price Index (GDP–PI); (2) a productivity 

factor or ‘‘X-Factor,’’ which represents 

the amount by which LECs can be 

expected to outperform economy-wide 

productivity gains; and (3) adjustments 

to account for ‘‘exogenous’’ cost changes 

that are outside the LEC’s control and 

not otherwise reflected in the PCI. The 

Commission’s price cap formula 

permitted special access PCIs to 

increase by a measure of inflation, 

minus a productivity offset (the Xfactor). The X-factor represented the 

amount by which LECs were expected 

to outperform economy-wide 

productivity gains. 

B. Pricing Flexibility 

4. Pursuant to the pro-competitive, 

deregulatory mandates of the 1996 Act, 

the Commission adopted the Pricing 

Flexibility Order in 1999 to ensure that 

the Commission’s regulations did not 

unduly interfere with the operation of 

interstate access markets as competition 

developed. In that Order, the 

Commission developed competitive 

showing rules (also referred to as 

‘‘triggers’’) intended to measure whether 

market conditions in a given 

Metropolitan Statistical Area would 

warrant various levels of regulatory 

relief. To make a competitive showing, 

the Commission held that price cap 

LECs would need to demonstrate 

either that (1) competitors unaffiliated with 

the incumbent LEC have established 

operational collocation arrangements in a 

certain percentage of the incumbent LEC’s 

wire centers in an MSA, or (2) unaffiliated 

competitors have established operational 

collocation arrangements in wire centers 

accounting for a certain percentage of the 

incumbent LEC’s revenues from the services 

in question in that MSA. In both cases, the 

incumbent also must show, with respect to 

each wire center, that at least one collocator 

is relying on transport facilities provided by 

a transport provider other than the 

incumbent LEC. 

5. Under the rules, the Commission 

granted relief in two phases. Phase I 

relief, which required lower levels of 

collocation, gave price cap LECs the 

ability to lower their rates through 

contract tariffs and volume and term 


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discounts, but required that they 

maintain their generally available price 

cap-constrained tariff rates to ‘‘protect[ 

] those customers that lack competitive 

alternatives.’’ Phase II relief, which 

required higher levels of collocation, 

permitted price cap LECs to raise or 

lower their rates throughout an area, 

unconstrained by price cap regulations 

included in the Commission’s part 61 

and part 69 rules. 

C. The CALLS Order 

6. In 2000, the Commission adopted 

the CALLS plan, a five-year interim, 

industry-proposed regime designed to 

move towards a more market-based 

approach to rate setting. The CALLS 

plan separated special access services 

into their own basket and applied a 

separate X-factor to that basket. The Xfactor under the CALLS plan, unlike 

under prior price cap regimes, is not a 

productivity factor but ‘‘a transitional 

mechanism * * * to lower rates for a 

specified time period for special 

access.’’ The CALLS X-factor for special 

access was 3.0 percent in 2000, and 

increased to 6.5 percent for 2001, 2002, 

and 2003. For the final year of the 

CALLS plan (July 1, 2004–June 30, 

2005), the special access X-factor was 

set equal to inflation. As the 

Commission has yet to replace the 

interim CALLS plan X-factor, price cap 

LECs’ special access rates have 

remained frozen at 2003 levels 

(excluding any necessary exogenous 

cost adjustments). 

D. AT&T’s Petition for Rulemaking and 

2005 Special Access NPRM 

7. On October 15, 2002, AT&T Corp. 

filed a petition for rulemaking 

requesting that the Commission revoke 

the pricing flexibility rules and revisit 

the CALLS plan as it applies to special 

access services. AT&T contended both 

that the predictive judgment at the core 

of the Pricing Flexibility Order had not 

been confirmed by marketplace 

developments, and that BOC special 

access rates exceeded competitive levels 

and hence were unjust and 

unreasonable in violation of § 201 of the 

Communications Act. Because the 

predictive judgment had proven wrong, 

AT&T asserted, the Commission was 

compelled to revisit its pricing 

flexibility rules in a rulemaking 

proceeding. Price cap LECs countered 

that, among other things, their special 

access rates were reasonable and 

therefore lawful, that there was robust 

competition for special access services, 

that the collocation-based competitive 

showings were an accurate metric for 

competition, and that data relied upon 

by AT&T were unreliable in the context 

used by AT&T. 

8. On January 31, 2005, the 

Commission released the Special Access 

NPRM, which initiated a broad 

examination of what regulatory 

framework to apply to price cap LECs’ 

interstate special access services 

following the expiration of the CALLS 

plan, including whether to maintain or 

modify the Commission’s pricing 

flexibility rules. Moreover, the NPRM 

sought to examine whether the available 

marketplace data supported 

maintaining, modifying, or repealing 

these rules. It also responded to AT&T’s 

request for interim relief. 

E. Recent Actions in the Proceeding 

1. Competitive and Regulatory 

Developments 

9. Numerous regulatory and 

competitive developments affected the 

special access market in the years 

following the release of the Special 

Access NPRM. In July 2007, the 

Commission sought comment in the 

record in light of subsequent industry 

consolidation, a Government 

Accountability Office (GAO) report on 

special access competition, and other 

competitive developments. Moreover, as 

a result of a series of forbearance 

proceedings, the scope of services 

affected by the Special Access NPRM 

narrowed considerably. 

2. Analytical Framework 

10. In November 2009, the 

Commission’s Wireline Competition 

Bureau (Bureau) sought comment on the 

appropriate analytical framework for 

examining the issues that the Special 

Access NPRM raised. In July 2010, the 

Bureau held a staff workshop on the 

economics of special access to gather 

further input on the analytical 

framework issue. 

3. Voluntary Data Requests 

11. In October 2010, the Bureau 

issued a public notice inviting the 

public to submit data on the presence of 

competitive special access facilities to 

assist the Commission in evaluating the 

issues that the Special Access NPRM 

raised. In September 2011, the Bureau 

issued a second public notice requesting 

the submission of competition and 

pricing data. 

4. Pricing Flexibility Suspension Order 

12. On August 22, 2012, the 

Commission adopted an order that 

concluded that the special access 

pricing flexibility rules discussed above 

were not working as predicted and 

suspended the 90-day deadline for 

granting a petition for pricing flexibility 

based on those flawed rules. 

III. Report and Order 

13. In the Report and Order, we 

require providers and purchasers of 

special access service and certain other 

services to submit data, information and 

documents to allow the Commission to 

conduct a comprehensive evaluation of 

competition in the special access 

market. 

A. Scope 

14. In this section, we identify the 

scope of the data collection, the entities 

that must respond to the data collection, 

and the geographic areas and time 

periods for which they must respond. 

15. A preliminary note on 

terminology: For purposes of the Report 

and Order and consistent with 

Commission precedent, we do not 

include mass market Internet access 

services (e.g., DSL or cable modem 

service) in our definition of special 

access. We use the term ‘‘location’’ to 

mean a building, other man-made 

structure, a cell site on a building, a 

free-standing cell site, or a cell site on 

some other man-made structure where 

the end user is connected, but is not a 

‘‘node.’’ We use the term ‘‘node’’ to 

mean an aggregation point, a branch 

point, or a point of interconnection on 

a provider’s network, including a point 

of interconnection to other provider 

networks. ‘‘End user’’ means a business, 

institutional, or government entity that 

purchases dedicated service for its own 

purposes and does not resell such 

service. We use the term ‘‘connection’’ 

to mean a wired ‘‘line’’ or wireless 

‘‘channel’’ that provides a dedicated 

communication path between an end 

user’s location and the first node on a 

provider’s network. Examples include 

LEC central offices, remote terminal 

locations, splice points (including, for 

example, at manholes), controlled 

environmental vaults, cable system 

headends, cable modem termination 

system (CMTS) locations, and facility 

hubs. We use the terms ‘‘bandwidth’’ 

and ‘‘capacity’’ interchangeably. 

16. Services Covered. Traditionally, 

federal antitrust agencies have begun 

competitive analyses in a variety of 

contexts by defining relevant product 

and geographic markets. As noted in the 

Further Notice, however, these agencies 

have more recently noted that ‘‘analysis 

need not start with market definition 

* * * although evaluation of 

competitive alternatives available to 

customers is always necessary at some 

point in the analysis.’’ In particular, 

‘‘[e]vidence of competitive effects can 

inform market definition, just as market 


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2574 Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 

definition can be informative regarding 

competitive effects.’’ 

17. Taking these considerations into 

account, we collect information on the 

full array of traditional special access 

services, including DS1s and DS3s, and 

packet-based dedicated services such as 

Ethernet. Further, although there is little 

disagreement in the record as to the 

definition of special access services, and 

that as traditionally defined they do not 

include mass market Internet access 

services, there is some question as to 

whether the relevant product market 

should encompass not only special 

access services but other high-capacity 

data services targeted at enterprise 

customers. Some commenters have 

argued that best efforts broadband 

Internet access services—even when 

marketed to small- to medium-sized 

business customers—are not part of the 

relevant product market. These 

commenters note, among other things, 

that prices for best efforts services differ 

substantially from special access 

services for comparable bandwidth. 

Others have argued that best efforts 

services are often marketed with express 

comparisons to special access services, 

and therefore the Commission should 

collect data on both. 

18. We need not resolve the marketdefinition issue here—for purposes of 

this data collection, we conclude it is 

best to simply take a broad approach. To 

ensure that we collect data on services 

that enterprise customers may view as 

substitutable, we define the scope of our 

data collection to include best efforts 

business broadband Internet access 

services, which we define as best efforts 

Internet access data services with a 

capacity equal to or greater than a DS1 

connection that are marketed to 

enterprise customers (including small, 

medium, and large businesses, as well 

as existing special access customers). As 

described below, we structure the 

collection somewhat differently for best 

efforts and special access services to 

minimize the burden on submitters 

consistent with our data requirements 

and taking into consideration data that 

the Commission already has available to 

it. 

19. We also note that we intend to 

collect data on intrastate special access 

services and special access services 

offered via a state-level tariff or stateapproved contract. Doing so is necessary 

to ensure that we have a clear picture of 

all competition in the marketplace. 

20. Providers and purchasers that 

must respond. In order to conduct a 

comprehensive analysis of the special 

access market, we will collect data from 

all providers and purchasers of special 

access services as well as some entities 

that provide best efforts business 

broadband Internet access services. By 

‘‘providers,’’ we mean any entity subject 

to the Commission’s jurisdiction under 

the Communications Act, as amended, 

that provides special access services or 

provides a connection that is capable of 

providing special access services. By 

‘‘purchasers,’’ we mean any entity 

subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction 

under the Communications Act, as 

amended, that purchases special access 

services. 

21. To clarify our terminology, we 

note that some providers are 

‘‘competitive providers,’’ by which we 

mean a competitive local exchange 

carrier (CLEC), interexchange carrier, 

cable operator, wireless provider or any 

other provider that is not an incumbent 

LEC operating within its incumbent 

service territory. We also note that a 

rate-of-return carrier, which is not 

subject to our pricing flexibility rules, 

shall not be considered a ‘‘provider’’ to 

the extent it provides special access 

within its rate-of-return service area. 

This exemption does not apply to 

services not regulated on a rate-of-return 

basis or provided outside a rate-ofreturn carrier’s service area by itself or 

an affiliate. 

22. We note concerns regarding the 

burden that this data collection will 

impose on small companies, and are 

mindful of the importance of seeking to 

reduce information collection burdens 

for small business concerns, and in 

particular those ‘‘with fewer than 25 

employees.’’ Any effort to lessen the 

burdens of this information collection 

on small companies must be balanced 

against our goal of obtaining the most 

accurate and useful data possible. 

Competition in the provision of special 

access appears to occur at a very 

granular level—perhaps as low as the 

building/tower. A provider that owns 50 

of its own channel terminations to end 

users may not be competitively 

significant within an area as large as an 

MSA, but could be a significant 

competitor within smaller areas, such as 

zip code areas. Therefore, we believe it 

necessary to obtain data from special 

access providers and purchasers of all 

sizes, but we shall not require entities 

with fewer than 15,000 customers and 

fewer than 1,500 business broadband 

customers to provide data regarding 

their best efforts business broadband 

Internet access services. As some 

commenters have urged us to do, this 

approach will incorporate data and 

information from nascent technologies, 

such as WISPs. 

23. Geographic scope. With some 

exceptions, we will collect data on a 

nationwide basis to ensure the most 

comprehensive and accurate assessment 

of competition in markets for special 

access services subject to our pricing 

flexibility rules. Because the focus of 

this proceeding is on the regulation of 

special access services in price-cap 

territories, we will not require data from 

any provider with regard to its 

operations in any geographic area in 

which a rate-of-return carrier is the 

incumbent, as such carriers are not 

subject to the pricing flexibility rules. 

Moreover, we will not require a 

purchaser to produce data based on 

purchases it makes in those areas in 

which a rate-of-return carrier is the 

incumbent. If, however, a provider or 

purchaser prefers to provide data for all 

areas without distinguishing between 

areas served by price cap LECs and rateof-return LECs, it may do so. 

24. We considered whether we could 

reduce the burden of this data collection 

by collecting all of our data from a 

sample of locations (e.g., business 

locations and wireless towers) and/or 

larger geographic areas. However, we 

decline to adopt a sampling approach 

because we believe that the process of 

identifying and collecting a 

representative sample would be 

unlikely to substantially reduce 

provider burdens, and could 

significantly lengthen the data 

collection process. With respect to a 

sample of geographic regions, it is very 

difficult to design a representative 

sample without coming close to 

covering the entire country—a fact that 

minimizes the likelihood that a 

geographic sample would actually 

reduce the burden on respondents. 

Further, respondents likely would be 

required to search multiple databases 

and compare the results of those 

searches to determine which of their 

customer locations were in the selected 

geographies, resulting in substantial 

setup costs. Finally, even where a 

respondent need only consult a single 

database, it typically would have to 

engage in essentially the same, or 

greater (to account for the geographic 

sample), amount of coding to ‘‘pull’’ a 

sample of records as it would if it pulled 

all records. 

25. A methodology based on sampling 

specific locations suffers from the same 

database and coding issues as 

geographic sampling, and further would 

likely lengthen the data collection 

process by a significant margin. 

Although the most recent data we have 

are several years old, they suggest that 

competitive providers may serve a 

relatively small proportion of all 

locations that have special access. As a 

result, a random sample from all 

locations would need to be very large— 


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perhaps approaching a census—to 

obtain sufficient data on competitive 

providers. Alternatively, we could 

require all respondents to identify all 

the relevant locations so that a smaller 

sample could be drawn from that census 

in a scientific way. That approach likely 

would lengthen the data collection 

process because it would require two 

collections to be conducted 

sequentially: First a census of served 

locations from which a sample could be 

drawn, and then a subsequent issuing of 

questions about locations in the sample. 

It would also fail to significantly reduce 

the overall burden for several reasons. 

First, the burden of producing the 

census would be similar to, though 

perhaps lower than, the burden of 

producing the information identified 

above. Second, because of the need to 

tie sampled locations to the relevant 

databases, the effort to respond to 

questions about a sample of locations 

would, for many respondents, raise, or 

at least not reduce, their burden. Third, 

while the costs in burden saved through 

sampling are likely to be relatively 

small, the statistical error of any 

conclusions based on a sample could be 

significantly higher than conclusions 

based on a census. 

26. We do choose to sample for the 

narrower purpose of seeking to 

understand the evolution of competitive 

provider buildout of a connection to a 

specific end user’s location. Such an 

analysis requires facilities deployment 

data over a long period of time, which 

would be burdensome for many 

providers to produce for their entire 

networks. By collecting this data in a 

representative sample of geographic 

areas, it is possible to minimize the 

burden on providers while providing 

accurate and useful data on this narrow 

aspect of providers’ behavior. The 

decision to sample for this narrow 

purpose does not suffer from the same 

issues discussed above. First, the 

sample can be significantly smaller than 

would be necessary for a more general 

analysis. Second, the sample will be 

drawn from the universe of locations 

identified in the course of the larger 

data collection; this sequential 

collection is unlikely to materially 

impact our ability to undertake the 

proposed analysis. Finally, the 

information to be produced from the 

sample is limited to facilities 

deployment data. 

27. Temporal scope. We will collect 

the majority of the data for calendar 

years 2010 and 2012. We find that 

collecting data on these issues for two 

calendar years appropriately balances 

the need for time series data with the 

burden of producing data for multiple 

years. We choose calendar year 2012 

because it is the most recent calendar 

year for which data will be available 

once Paperwork Reduction Act approval 

is obtained for the information 

collection adopted in this order. And by 

collecting 2012 data, the Commission 

will obtain the most up-to-date data 

available while still providing 

respondents a reasonable time to gather 

and submit their data. We choose 

calendar year 2010 because, while we 

recognize that it likely is more 

burdensome to produce 2010 data than 

2011 data, a two year period between 

observations is more likely to include 

changes in the relevant variables than a 

one year period. We also recognize that 

our second voluntary data request 

sought data for 2010, which will mean 

those providers who responded to that 

request will be able to rely on their past 

efforts in responding to some elements 

of this collection. 

28. We will collect two years’ worth 

of data for market structure, price, and 

demand (i.e., observed sales and 

purchases). This allows for an analysis 

that controls for factors that may vary 

widely across geographic areas, but not 

within a given geographic area (e.g., 

entry factors such as building codes or 

soil quality). For example, if we observe 

differences in deployment between 

different geographies, these may be due 

to differences in factors such as building 

codes, climate, or soil quality. 

Controlling for these can be challenging. 

However, these kinds of variables do not 

typically change significantly over a few 

years. In contrast, observing differences 

in deployment that emerge over a few 

years within the same geographic region 

permits an analysis that controls for 

such factors. Conversely, if we have 

only one year’s worth of data, we will 

be less able to associate particular 

factors with levels of deployment. 

29. Most importantly, collecting a 

time series of data will help us assess 

potential competition. One way to 

assess potential competition is by 

obtaining structural, pricing, and 

demand data over a two-year period to 

observe and better understand how and 

why competition has evolved over time 

and, therefore, where potential 

competition exists. Our proposal to 

collect historical data, which could be 

used to predict potential competition, is 

consistent with Commission precedent, 

as well as that of the U.S. antitrust 

agencies. 

B. Nature of Data To Be Collected 

30. The data, information, and 

documents required to conduct a robust 

analysis of special access competition 

fall into five general categories: Market 

structure, pricing, demand (i.e., 

observed sales and purchases), terms 

and conditions, and competition and 

pricing decisions. In this section, we 

describe the nature of the data to be 

collected. Further, we include in 

Appendix C an initial version of the 

data collection that incorporates the 

data, information, and documents we 

describe below. We direct the Bureau to 

review and modify this collection, 

consistent with the authority delegated 

in section III.D below, to implement the 

requirements of this Report and Order. 

31. Market structure data. We intend 

to assess the market structure for special 

access market(s). By this, we mean that 

we intend to examine comprehensive 

data on the situs and type of facilities 

capable of providing special access, by 

sold and potential capacity and 

ownership, and the proximity of such 

facilities to sources of demand. 

Specifically, we require each provider to 

submit data and information for 

connections that are owned by the 

provider, leased under an indefeasible 

right of use (IRU), or, for competitive 

providers, obtained from an incumbent 

LEC as an unbundled network element 

(UNE) to provide a dedicated service, 

including, but not limited to: 

• Locations to which the provider has 

sold a connection to an end user or a 

provider; 

• Information on the nature of the 

location and the nature of the 

connection serving that location, 

including: 

Æ The situs of the location and 

whether the location is a building, other 

free-standing site, cell site on a building, 

or free-standing cell site; 

Æ Whether the connection is fiber, 

wireless (and if wireless, the 

provisioned bandwidth of the channel), 

or some other medium; and 

Æ The provisioned bandwidth of each 

type of connection. 

32. We require incumbent LEC 

providers to submit data concerning the 

number, nature, and situs of UNEs sold. 

33. We require competitive providers 

to submit detailed information related to 

non-price factors that may impact where 

special access providers build facilities 

or expand their network via UNEs. For 

example, providers may choose to 

expand their facilities in areas where 

they have already made significant 

facilities investments, like near their 

headquarters or a point of 

interconnection, to take advantage of 

cost efficiencies. We therefore require 

respondents to provide detailed 

information about such non-price 

factors. In addition, we require 

competitive providers to provide us 

with any business rules they use to 


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determine whether to build a 

connection to a location. 

34. In addition, we require 

competitive providers to submit the 

history of their facilities deployment in 

a sample of locations served by a 

competitive provider. Each competitive 

provider will report the date on which 

it provided a connection to each of its 

locations within the sample and 

locations proximate to the locations in 

the sample, including when and where 

it relied upon UNEs to establish a 

connection. The locations selected will 

include areas in which no pricing 

flexibility has been granted, as well as 

Phase I and/or Phase II pricing 

flexibility areas. These detailed data on 

the evolution of competitive provider 

networks will help us understand how 

competitive facilities are deployed over 

time and whether the presence of 

competitive facilities in fact provides a 

threat of competitive entry in nearby or 

adjacent areas. 

35. We require competitive providers 

to provide detailed collocation situs 

information. We also require 

competitive providers to submit maps of 

the routes followed by fiber that they 

own or lease subject to an IRU, of nodes 

that interconnect with third party 

networks, and of connections from their 

networks to locations. These maps will 

indicate where competitive providers 

can provide, or could potentially 

provide, special access services. Among 

other things, such maps will identify 

points of interconnection between 

competitive providers of special access 

services and incumbent LEC facilities. 

36. Price data. We require price data 

to characterize competition in the 

market for special access services. Such 

data will allow comparisons of different 

providers’ prices, after controlling, 

where necessary, for differences in costcausing factors, and can allow the 

consideration of the effect of market 

structure on price. Price data include, 

but are not limited to: 

• The quantities sold and prices 

charged for special access services, by 

circuit element; 

Æ As reflected in billing data; 

Æ Including, where applicable and 

necessary, but not limited to, identifiers 

for the nature of the service, such as: 

D Universal Service Order Code 

(USOC) or comparable code; 

D Circuit and/or mileage end-points; 

D Quantities relevant for billing (such 

as bandwidth and mileage); 

D Term, volume, or revenue 

commitments relevant to billing; and 

D Adjustments, rebates, or true-ups 

provided or received over time. 

The Bureau collected similar data on a 

voluntary basis in the Special Access 

Facilities Data Public Notice. 

37. To understand this pricing 

information, we must also take into 

account the regulatory environment. For 

competitive providers, we already know 

the regulatory environment—they are 

unregulated with respect to price at the 

federal level. In contrast, the 

Commission regulates the prices 

incumbent LECs charge through a 

variety of methods: rate-of-return 

regulation, price-cap regulation, and 

Phases I and II of pricing flexibility. We 

therefore require incumbent LECs to list 

the form of price regulation that applies 

to their interstate special access services 

on a wire-center-by-wire-center basis. 

38. Demand data (i.e., observed sales 

and purchases). Demand data are a key 

input into any statistical analysis of how 

price varies with competition. 

Competitors generally are attracted to 

areas of high demand density because 

such areas provide opportunities to 

enjoy economies of scale and scope. 

Consequently, an understanding of the 

relationship between prices for observed 

sales and purchases and competitive 

entry will facilitate an assessment of 

market power. In addition, the record 

indicates that competition in the 

provision of special access appears to 

occur at a very granular level—perhaps 

as low as the building/tower or a floor 

of a building. We therefore need to 

understand observed sales or purchases 

of special access at the most granular 

level possible, because, among other 

things, sold or purchased volumes and 

volume density are a key driver of 

special access costs and an important 

determinant of the likelihood of 

potential entry. We therefore will 

collect, including but not limited to, 

data that identify: 

• The bandwidth of the special access 

services sold or purchased; 

• The location(s) being served; 

• The nature of the demand (e.g., 

provider, end user, other); 

• The locations of mobile wireless 

providers’ cell sites and connections to 

those cell sites; 

• Total expenditures on special 

access services by purchasers; and 

• Revenues earned from the sales of 

special access. 

39. Terms and conditions data and 

information. The record reflects 

questions about whether the terms and 

conditions associated with the sale of 

special access services may inhibit a 

buyer’s ability to switch to other 

providers, which in turn may inhibit 

facilities-based entry into special access 

markets. We therefore will collect, from 

providers and purchasers of special 

access services, data and information 

that includes but is not limited to: 

• Generally available plans for 

tariffed special access services that offer 

discounts, circuit portability, or other 

competitively relevant benefits; 

• The business rationale for those 

plans; 

• The extent of special access sales 

and purchases made that are and are not 

subject to discounts, circuit portability, 

or other benefits; 

• How such plans work with each 

other, and in conjunction with contractbased tariffs and other forms of 

contracts that govern the sale and 

pricing of special access services; 

• Customer information associated 

with such plans and contract-based 

tariffs (e.g., the number of customers 

subscribed to an individual plan or 

contract-based tariff); 

• How discounts, circuit portability, 

and other competitively relevant 

benefits for sales of special access 

services by competitive providers differ 

from those of the incumbent LEC 

providers; 

• Contract-based tariffs; 

• Provider policies and internal 

procedures governing deployment, 

disconnection, upgrades, and switching 

providers; 

• The impact certain terms and 

conditions may have on a purchaser’s 

ability to reduce purchases from its 

existing provider, switch providers, or 

purchase unregulated services; 

• Generally available tariffs, contractbased tariffs, and other forms of 

contracts that govern the sale and 

pricing of special access services and 

services that are sold (or priced) in 

connection with special access services; 

and 

• A description of the customers 

targeted by providers (e.g., size, 

geographic scope, type) and the 

promotional and advertising strategies 

for winning or retaining such customers. 

40. Competition and pricing decision 

data, information and documents. We 

require providers of special access to 

submit data, information and/or 

documents related to competition and 

pricing decisions for special access 

services, including selected competitive 

provider responses to Requests for 

Proposals (RFPs). 

41. Specifically, we require each 

competitive provider to identify the five 

most recent RFPs for which it was 

selected as the winning bidder to 

provide each of the following: (i) Best 

effort business broadband Internet 

access services, (ii) special access 

services, and, to the extent different 

from (i) or (ii), and (iii) some other form 

of high-capacity data services to 


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business customers. We also require 

each competitive provider to identify 

the five largest (by number of 

connections) RFPs for which it 

submitted an unsuccessful competitive 

bid between 2010 and 2012 for each of 

(i) best effort business broadband 

Internet access services, (ii) special 

access services, and, to the extent 

different from (i) or (ii), and (iii) some 

other form of high-capacity data services 

to business customers. For each RFP 

identified, the competitive provider 

shall provide a description of the RFP, 

the area covered, the price offered, as 

well as other competitively relevant 

information regarding RFPs specified by 

the Bureau. 

42. Parties contend that advertising 

and marketing relating to special access, 

regardless of whether a competitive 

provider has actually built out facilities 

to a particular location, may impact 

pricing and deployment decisions. 

Accordingly, we require competitive 

providers of special access to submit 

data, maps, information, marketing 

materials, and/or documents identifying 

those geographic areas where they 

advertised or marketed special access 

services over existing facilities, via 

leased facilities, or by building out new 

facilities as of December 31, 2010 and 

December 31, 2012, or planned to 

advertise or market such services within 

twenty four months following those 

dates. 

43. Another useful category of 

information may be documents showing 

the internal analyses undertaken by 

providers in 2010 or thereafter to 

evaluate, inter alia, competitive market 

shares, changes in competition, changes 

in the costs of supplying services, 

whether to respond to RFPs, and 

identified rate increases and decreases. 

We decline at this time to require all 

providers to submit that information 

given the burden of identifying and 

producing such documents. Instead, we 

shall take a two-stage approach with 

these internal documents. Specifically, 

we delegate authority to the Bureau to 

require a provider to submit such 

documents if the Bureau finds in an 

order that (a) a provider’s responses to 

the business-rules questions are 

incomplete or insufficient for analysis, 

(b) a competitive provider’s responses to 

the history-of-deployment questions are 

incomplete or insufficient for analysis, 

or (c) the data collected for a particular 

geographic area are incomplete or 

insufficient for analysis. 

44. Best Efforts Business Broadband 

Internet Access Services. As noted 

above, we define the scope of our data 

collection to include best efforts 

business broadband Internet access 

services. Because the record indicates 

that entities that provide best efforts 

business broadband Internet access 

services generally deliver those services 

throughout their footprint over the same 

network facilities they use to deliver 

mass market broadband Internet access, 

we need not collect this data at the same 

level of granularity as location and 

facilities data for special access. Data 

showing whether an entity is providing 

best efforts business broadband Internet 

access service at, for example, the 

census block level would not diminish 

the rigor of our analysis, but would 

significantly reduce the burden of 

producing the necessary data. Indeed, 

many entities already submit data in 

connection with the State Broadband 

Initiative (SBI) Grant Program as to 

where they offer best efforts broadband 

Internet access services at the census 

block level. 

45. Further, we already have 

information on enterprise subscriptions 

to broadband Internet access services 

through our Form 477 collection. In 

their biannual Form 477 filings, 

facilities-based providers of fixedlocation Internet access connections 

(which include providers equipping 

UNEs, special access lines, or other 

leased facilities) submit information, by 

census tract (areas roughly the size of 

zip codes), on all Internet access 

connections (greater than 200 kbps) to 

end users, including businesses. They 

also identify the percentage of 

connections within each census tract 

that is residential. 

46. We therefore require, subject to 

the exception set forth in paragraph 22 

above, entities that submitted data in 

connection with the SBI Grant Program 

and offer best efforts business 

broadband Internet access services to 

identify, on a granular but not locationby-location basis (ideally, at the census 

block level), the geographic areas in 

which they offer those services. The 

Bureau may accept such entities’ 

certification that the data they have 

submitted in connection with the SBI 

Grant Program accurately and 

completely identify the areas in which 

they offer best efforts business 

broadband Internet access services and 

exclude those areas where they do not 

offer such services. We further require 

such entities to submit a price list for 

the best efforts business broadband 

Internet access services that they offered 

within their footprint. Such price list 

should identify the list prices for the 

best efforts business broadband Internet 

access services they offered, whether 

there was any price variation within 

their service footprint, and, if so, the 

nature of such variation. This 

information, taken together with the 

Form 477 data and the data we will 

collect on UNEs that could be used to 

provide these services, will allow us to 

analyze of the availability of, demand 

for, and pricing of best efforts business 

broadband Internet access services. 

47. Additional Data Not Collected. We 

recognize that the collection we adopt 

today does not include every type of 

data that is available. Commenters 

suggest we ask for a broad array of 

competition data and information. 

Others have recommended obtaining 

information about providers’ past lateral 

construction projects, future upgrade or 

expansion plans and additional 

information on competitive bidding. We 

agree that some such information may 

be qualitatively useful, and, for 

example, have required the production 

of data on competitive provider RFP 

responses and future plans to inform 

our analysis. We must, however, 

balance the administrative burdens with 

the potential benefits of a broader 

collection, and believe that this Report 

and Order will allow us to collect data 

and information sufficient for our 

purposes while minimizing, to the 

extent possible, the burden we impose 

on industry. 

48. Further, we agree with 

commenters who argue that to 

understand the impact of competition in 

special access, it is important to grasp 

the effects of potential, as well as actual, 

competition. To this end we are 

requiring the production of information 

that will illuminate those factors that 

affect providers’ decisions to expand 

existing networks, e.g., the non-price 

factors that may impact where special 

access providers build new facilities, 

business rules for deployment, a sample 

of historical deployment, points of 

collocation, fiber network maps, 

availability and use of UNEs, internal 

analysis of pricing decisions, a selected 

set of responses to RFPs, and internal 

competitive analysis. 

C. Statutory Authority 

49. Several provisions of the 

Communications Act and the 

Telecommunications Act give the 

Commission authority to adopt this data 

collection. Under section 218 of the 

Communications Act, we may ‘‘obtain 

from [common] carriers and from 

persons directly or indirectly 

controlling or controlled by, or under 

direct or indirect common control with, 

such carriers full and complete 

information necessary to enable the 

Commission to perform the duties and 

carry out the objects for which it was 

created.’’ As such, section 218 

empowers us to collect data from 


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incumbent LECs, competitive LECs, 

CMRS providers, and other common 

carriers whether they provide or 

purchase special access service or other 

relevant services. 

50. Section 201 requires that interstate 

special access service rates, terms, and 

conditions be just and reasonable, 

section 202 prohibits unjust or 

unreasonable discrimination in the 

provision of interstate special access 

services, and section 706 of the 

Telecommunications Act requires that 

we ‘‘encourage the deployment of 

advanced telecommunications 

capability * * * by utilizing, in a 

manner consistent with the public 

interest, convenience, and necessity, 

price cap regulation, regulatory 

forbearance, measures that promote 

competition in the local 

telecommunications market, or other 

regulating methods that remove barriers 

to infrastructure investment.’’ The 

Communications Act in turn provides 

us authority to carry out these duties— 

all of which will be aided by today’s 

data collection—in section 4(i), which 

empowers the Commission to ‘‘perform 

any and all acts * * * and issue such 

orders * * * as may be necessary in the 

execution of [our] functions,’’ and 

section 201(b), which authorizes the 

Commission to ‘‘prescribe such rules 

and regulations as may be necessary in 

the public interest to carry out the 

provisions’’ of the Communications Act. 

These authorities, along with our 

subject matter jurisdiction over 

‘‘interstate and foreign commerce in 

communication by wire and radio,’’ 

allow us to extend the data collection 

beyond common carriers to include 

other market participants that provide 

interstate communication by wire or 

radio. We note that there is widespread 

accord in the record on the 

Commission’s authority to require the 

collection of the data and information it 

needs to inform our future actions. 

51. We note that parties have had 

extensive notice and opportunity to 

comment on the need for and scope of 

this data collection. In the 2005 Special 

Access NPRM, the Commission sought 

comment regarding evidence of 

marketplace competitiveness and 

pricing for special access services, 

including the data and information to 

perform those analyses. In a subsequent 

Public Notice, the Commission sought 

additional data and to otherwise refresh 

the record of the Special Access NPRM 

in light of subsequent developments, 

including the release of a GAO report 

that, among other things, contended that 

the Commission needed additional data 

to evaluate the special access 

marketplace. In the resulting record of 

the proceeding, various parties 

advocated that the Commission 

undertake a data collection to obtain the 

data necessary to appropriately perform 

these analyses. Citing such filings, the 

Bureau sought comment on an 

analytical framework necessary to 

resolve the issues raised in the Special 

Access NPRM, including whether the 

record contained sufficient information 

to perform such analyses and, if not, 

what additional data the Commission 

should collect, and from whom. Most 

recently, in the Special Access Pricing 

Flexibility Suspension Order, the 

Commission stated that a data collection 

order would be forthcoming. In short, 

we have provided notice regarding this 

comprehensive data collection that has 

given ample opportunity for public 

participation and met any requirements 

of the Administrative Procedure Act. 

D. Role of the Wireline Competition 

Bureau 

52. The data collection we adopt 

today is set forth in Appendix A of the 

Report and Order. Given the 

complexities associated with ensuring 

that the specific questions asked meet 

the Commission’s needs as expressed in 

this Report and Order, navigating the 

Paperwork Reduction Act process, and 

actually collecting, cleaning, and 

analyzing the data, we delegate limited 

authority to the Bureau to: (a) Draft 

instructions to the data collection and 

modify the data collection based on 

public feedback; (b) amend the data 

collection based on feedback received 

through the PRA process; (c) make 

corrections to the data collection to 

ensure it reflects the Commission’s 

needs as expressed in this Report and 

Order; and (d) issue Bureau-level orders 

and Public Notices specifying the 

production of specific types of data, 

specifying a collection mechanism 

(including necessary forms or formats), 

and setting deadlines for response to 

ensure that data collections are 

complied with in a timely manner, and 

(e) take other such actions as are 

necessary to implement this Report and 

Order. All such actions must be 

consistent with the terms of the Report 

and Order. 

53. Our goal is to ensure a 

comprehensive and detailed data 

collection. Accordingly, we direct the 

Bureau to engage in outreach with the 

provider and purchaser communities to 

ensure that all providers and purchasers 

are aware of this comprehensive data 

collection and the penalties for nonresponse. We encourage the Bureau to 

reach out to trade associations that 

represent small providers to inform 

them of their obligations to participate 

in the data collection effort and to 

ensure that we have maximum 

participation. In addition, to reduce the 

burden of this data collection, we direct 

the Bureau to facilitate whenever 

possible the conversion of street 

addresses to geocoded coordinates for 

small providers and purchasers. 

E. Data Retention 

54. Respondents are required to retain 

any data, documents, documentation, or 

other information prepared for, or in 

connection with, their responses to 

these data reporting requirements for a 

period of three years or until the 

Commission issues a notice relieving 

respondents of this retention 

requirement upon the exhaustion of any 

appeals of a final order adopted in this 

proceeding. 

F. Penalties for False Statements and 

Non-Response 

55. Respondents are required to 

certify that all statements of fact, data 

and information submitted to the 

Commission are true and correct to the 

best of their knowledge. False 

statements or misrepresentations to the 

Commission may be punishable by fine 

or imprisonment under Title 18 of the 

U.S. Code. Respondents are reminded 

that failure to comply with these data 

reporting requirements may subject 

them to monetary forfeitures of up to 

$150,000 for each violation or each day 

of a continuing violation, up to a 

maximum of $1,500,000 for any single 

act or failure to act that is a continuing 

violation. 

IV. Procedural Matters 

A. Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis 

56. This document contains a new 

information collection requirement 

subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act 

of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104–13. It 

will be submitted to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

review under section 3507 of the PRA, 

44 U.S.C. 3507. Prior to submission to 

OMB, the Commission will publish a 

notice in the Federal Register seeking 

public comment on the information 

collection requirement. In addition, that 

notice will also seek comment on how 

the Commission might ‘‘further reduce 

the information collection burden for 

small business concerns with fewer than 

25 employees’’ pursuant to the Small 

Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 

Public Law 107–198, see 44 U.S.C. 

3506(c)(4). The information collection 

contained in this Report and Order will 

not go into effect until OMB approves 

the collection and the Commission has 

published a notice in the Federal 


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Register announcing the effective date 

of the information collection. 

B. Congressional Review Act 

57. The Commission will send a copy 

of this Report and Order and Further 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to 

Congress and the Government 

Accountability Office pursuant to the 

Congressional Review Act. See 5 U.S.C. 

801(a)(1)(A). 

C. Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis 

58. The Regulatory Flexibility Act 

(RFA) requires that an agency prepare a 

regulatory flexibility analysis for notice 

and comment rulemakings, unless the 

agency certifies that ‘‘the rule will not, 

if promulgated, have a significant 

economic impact on a substantial 

number of small entities.’’ Accordingly, 

we have prepared a Final Regulatory 

Flexibility Analysis concerning the 

possible impact of the Report and Order 

on small entities. 

59. As required by the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA), as 

amended, Initial Regulatory Flexibility 

analyses (IRFAs) were incorporated in 

the Special Access NPRM for this 

proceeding. The Commission sought 

written public comment on the 

proposals in the Special Access NPRM, 

including comment on the IRFA. 

Comments received are discussed 

below. This present Final Regulatory 

Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) conforms to 

the RFA. 

1. Need for, and Objectives of, the Order 

60. In 2005, the Commission initiated 

this proceeding as a broad examination 

of what regulatory framework to apply 

to price cap local exchange carriers’ 

(LECs) interstate special access services 

following the expiration of the CALLS 

plan, including whether to maintain or 

modify the Commission’s pricing 

flexibility rules. Moreover, the NPRM 

sought to examine whether the available 

marketplace data supported 

maintaining, modifying, or repealing 

these rules. In the Report and Order, the 

Commission continues the process of 

reviewing our special access rules to 

ensure that they reflect the state of 

competition today and promote 

competition, investment, and access to 

dedicated communications services 

businesses across the country rely on 

every day to deliver their products and 

services to American consumers. 

Specifically, the Commission initiates a 

comprehensive data collection and seek 

comment on a proposal to use the data 

to evaluate competition in the market 

for special access services. 

61. In the Report and Order, we 

require providers and purchasers of 

special access service and certain other 

services—including best efforts business 

broadband Internet access services— as 

well as entities that provide certain 

other services, to submit data, 

information and documents to allow the 

Commission to conduct a 

comprehensive evaluation of 

competition in the special access 

market. The data, information, and 

documents required fall into five 

general categories: market structure; 

pricing; demand (i.e., observed sales 

and purchases), terms and conditions; 

and competition and pricing decisions. 

We will collect the majority of the data 

for calendar years 2010 and 2012. 

2. Summary of Significant Issues Raised 

by Public Comments in Response to the 

IRFA 

62. The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. 

Small Business Administration (SBA) 

filed reply comments to the Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking and the Initial 

Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis 

(IRFA). The SBA asserts that the 

Commission’s IRFA did not consider the 

effect of new special access rules on 

small competitive carriers and urged the 

Commission to do so. SBA contended 

that because the Commission’s 2005 

Triennial Review Remand Order (TRRO) 

required both large and small 

competitive carriers to purchase special 

access services instead of UNEs in many 

metropolitan markets, the Commission 

should consider the impact that changes 

in special access prices would have on 

small competitive carriers. SBA 

suggested a number of potential 

alternatives to special access pricing 

regulation that it asserted might 

minimize the impact on small 

competitive carriers. No other 

comments were filed in response to the 

IRFA. 

3. Description and Estimate of the 

Number of Small Entities to Which the 

Proposed Rules Will Apply 

63. The RFA directs agencies to 

provide a description of, and where 

feasible, an estimate of the number of 

small entities that may be affected by 

the proposed rules, if adopted. The RFA 

generally defines the term ‘‘small 

entity’’ as having the same meaning as 

the terms ‘‘small business,’’ ‘‘small 

organization,’’ and ‘‘small governmental 

jurisdiction.’’ In addition, the term 

‘‘small business’’ has the same meaning 

as the term ‘‘small-business concern’’ 

under the Small Business Act. A ‘‘smallbusiness concern’’ is one which: (1) Is 

independently owned and operated; (2) 

is not dominant in its field of operation; 

and (3) satisfies any additional criteria 

established by the SBA. 

64. Small Businesses. Nationwide, 

there are a total of approximately 27.5 

million small businesses, according to 

the SBA. 

65. Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers. The SBA has developed a 

small business size standard for Wired 

Telecommunications Carriers, which 

consists of all such companies having 

1,500 or fewer employees. According to 

Census Bureau data for 2007, there were 

3,188 firms in this category, total, that 

operated for the entire year. Of this 

total, 3,144 firms had employment of 

999 or fewer employees, and 44 firms 

had employment of 1,000 employees or 

more. Thus, under this size standard, 

the majority of firms can be considered 

small. 

66. Local Exchange Carriers (LECs). 

Neither the Commission nor the SBA 

has developed a size standard for small 

businesses specifically applicable to 

local exchange services. The closest 

applicable size standard under SBA 

rules is for Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers. Under that size standard, such 

a business is small if it has 1,500 or 

fewer employees. According to 

Commission data, 1,307 carriers 

reported that they were incumbent local 

exchange service providers. Of these 

1,307 carriers, an estimated 1,006 have 

1,500 or fewer employees and 301 have 

more than 1,500 employees. 

Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that most providers of local 

exchange service are small entities that 

may be affected by the rules and 

policies proposed in the Order. 

67. Incumbent Local Exchange 

Carriers (incumbent LECs). Neither the 

Commission nor the SBA has developed 

a size standard for small businesses 

specifically applicable to incumbent 

local exchange services. The closest 

applicable size standard under SBA 

rules is for Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers. Under that size standard, such 

a business is small if it has 1,500 or 

fewer employees. According to 

Commission data, 1,307 carriers 

reported that they were incumbent local 

exchange service providers. Of these 

1,307 carriers, an estimated 1,006 have 

1,500 or fewer employees and 301 have 

more than 1,500 employees. 

Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that most providers of 

incumbent local exchange service are 

small businesses that may be affected by 

rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

68. We have included small 

incumbent LECs in this present RFA 

analysis. As noted above, a ‘‘small 

business’’ under the RFA is one that, 

inter alia, meets the pertinent small 

business size standard (e.g., a telephone 

communications business having 1,500 


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or fewer employees), and ‘‘is not 

dominant in its field of operation.’’ The 

SBA’s Office of Advocacy contends that, 

for RFA purposes, small incumbent 

LECs are not dominant in their field of 

operation because any such dominance 

is not ‘‘national’’ in scope. We have 

therefore included small incumbent 

LECs in this RFA analysis, although we 

emphasize that this RFA action has no 

effect on Commission analyses and 

determinations in other, non-RFA 

contexts. 

69. Competitive Local Exchange 

Carriers (competitive LECs), Competitive 

Access Providers (CAPs), Shared-Tenant 

Service Providers, and Other Local 

Service Providers. Neither the 

Commission nor the SBA has developed 

a small business size standard 

specifically for these service providers. 

The appropriate size standard under 

SBA rules is for the category Wired 

Telecommunications Carriers. Under 

that size standard, such a business is 

small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. 

According to Commission data, 1,442 

carriers reported that they were engaged 

in the provision of either competitive 

local exchange services or competitive 

access provider services. Of these 1,442 

carriers, an estimated 1,256 have 1,500 

or fewer employees and 186 have more 

than 1,500 employees. In addition, 17 

carriers have reported that they are 

Shared-Tenant Service Providers, and 

all 17 are estimated to have 1,500 or 

fewer employees. In addition, 72 

carriers have reported that they are 

Other Local Service Providers. Of the 

72, seventy have 1,500 or fewer 

employees and two have more than 

1,500 employees. Consequently, the 

Commission estimates that most 

providers of competitive local exchange 

service, competitive access providers, 

Shared-Tenant Service Providers, and 

Other Local Service Providers are small 

entities that may be affected by rules 

adopted pursuant to the Order. 

70. Interexchange Carriers (IXCs). 

Neither the Commission nor the SBA 

has developed a size standard for small 

businesses specifically applicable to 

interexchange services. The closest 

applicable size standard under SBA 

rules is for Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers. Under that size standard, such 

a business is small if it has 1,500 or 

fewer employees. According to 

Commission data, 359 companies 

reported that their primary 

telecommunications service activity was 

the provision of interexchange services. 

Of these 359 companies, an estimated 

317 have 1,500 or fewer employees and 

42 have more than 1,500 employees. 

Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that the majority of 

interexchange service providers are 

small entities that may be affected by 

rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

71. Prepaid Calling Card Providers. 

Neither the Commission nor the SBA 

has developed a small business size 

standard specifically for prepaid calling 

card providers. The appropriate size 

standard under SBA rules is for the 

category Telecommunications Resellers. 

Under that size standard, such a 

business is small if it has 1,500 or fewer 

employees. According to Commission 

data, 193 carriers have reported that 

they are engaged in the provision of 

prepaid calling cards. Of these, an 

estimated all 193 have 1,500 or fewer 

employees and none have more than 

1,500 employees. Consequently, the 

Commission estimates that the majority 

of prepaid calling card providers are 

small entities that may be affected by 

rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

72. Local Resellers. The SBA has 

developed a small business size 

standard for the category of 

Telecommunications Resellers. Under 

that size standard, such a business is 

small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. 

According to Commission data, 213 

carriers have reported that they are 

engaged in the provision of local resale 

services. Of these, an estimated 211 

have 1,500 or fewer employees and two 

have more than 1,500 employees. 

Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that the majority of local 

resellers are small entities that may be 

affected by rules adopted pursuant to 

the Order. 

73. Toll Resellers. The SBA has 

developed a small business size 

standard for the category of 

Telecommunications Resellers. Under 

that size standard, such a business is 

small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. 

According to Commission data, 881 

carriers have reported that they are 

engaged in the provision of toll resale 

services. Of these, an estimated 857 

have 1,500 or fewer employees and 24 

have more than 1,500 employees. 

Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that the majority of toll 

resellers are small entities that may be 

affected by rules adopted pursuant to 

the Order. 

74. Other Toll Carriers. Neither the 

Commission nor the SBA has developed 

a size standard for small businesses 

specifically applicable to Other Toll 

Carriers. This category includes toll 

carriers that do not fall within the 

categories of interexchange carriers, 

operator service providers, prepaid 

calling card providers, satellite service 

carriers, or toll resellers. The closest 

applicable size standard under SBA 

rules is for Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers. Under that size standard, such 

a business is small if it has 1,500 or 

fewer employees. According to 

Commission data, 284 companies 

reported that their primary 

telecommunications service activity was 

the provision of other toll carriage. Of 

these, an estimated 279 have 1,500 or 

fewer employees and five have more 

than 1,500 employees. Consequently, 

the Commission estimates that most 

Other Toll Carriers are small entities 

that may be affected by the rules and 

policies adopted pursuant to the Order. 

75. 800 and 800-Like Service 

Subscribers. Neither the Commission 

nor the SBA has developed a small 

business size standard specifically for 

800 and 800-like service (toll free) 

subscribers. The appropriate size 

standard under SBA rules is for the 

category Telecommunications Resellers. 

Under that size standard, such a 

business is small if it has 1,500 or fewer 

employees. The most reliable source of 

information regarding the number of 

these service subscribers appears to be 

data the Commission collects on the 

800, 888, 877, and 866 numbers in use. 

According to our data, as of September 

2009, the number of 800 numbers 

assigned was 7,860,000; the number of 

888 numbers assigned was 5,588,687; 

the number of 877 numbers assigned 

was 4,721,866; and the number of 866 

numbers assigned was 7,867,736. We do 

not have data specifying the number of 

these subscribers that are not 

independently owned and operated or 

have more than 1,500 employees, and 

thus are unable at this time to estimate 

with greater precision the number of toll 

free subscribers that would qualify as 

small businesses under the SBA size 

standard. Consequently, we estimate 

that there are 7,860,000 or fewer small 

entity 800 subscribers; 5,588,687 or 

fewer small entity 888 subscribers; 

4,721,866 or fewer small entity 877 

subscribers; and 7,867,736 or fewer 

small entity 866 subscribers. 

76. Wireless Telecommunications 

Carriers (except Satellite). Since 2007, 

the SBA has recognized wireless firms 

within this new, broad, economic 

census category. Prior to that time, such 

firms were within the now-superseded 

categories of Paging and Cellular and 

Other Wireless Telecommunications. 

Under the present and prior categories, 

the SBA has deemed a wireless business 

to be small if it has 1,500 or fewer 

employees. For this category, census 

data for 2007 show that there were 1,383 

firms that operated for the entire year. 

Of this total, 1,368 firms had 

employment of 999 or fewer employees 

and 15 had employment of 1,000 

employees or more. Similarly, according 


tkelley on DSK3SPTVN1PROD with 
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to Commission data, 413 carriers 

reported that they were engaged in the 

provision of wireless telephony, 

including cellular service, Personal 

Communications Service (PCS), and 

Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) 

Telephony services. Of these, an 

estimated 261 have 1,500 or fewer 

employees and 152 have more than 

1,500 employees. Consequently, the 

Commission estimates that 

approximately half or more of these 

firms can be considered small. Thus, 

using available data, we estimate that 

the majority of wireless firms can be 

considered small. 

77. Broadband Personal 

Communications Service. The 

broadband personal communications 

service (PCS) spectrum is divided into 

six frequency blocks designated A 

through F, and the Commission has held 

auctions for each block. The 

Commission defined ‘‘small entity’’ for 

Blocks C and F as an entity that has 

average gross revenues of $40 million or 

less in the three previous calendar 

years. For Block F, an additional 

classification for ‘‘very small business’’ 

was added and is defined as an entity 

that, together with its affiliates, has 

average gross revenues of not more than 

$15 million for the preceding three 

calendar years. These standards 

defining ‘‘small entity’’ in the context of 

broadband PCS auctions have been 

approved by the SBA. No small 

businesses, within the SBA-approved 

small business size standards bid 

successfully for licenses in Blocks A 

and B. There were 90 winning bidders 

that qualified as small entities in the 

Block C auctions. A total of 93 small 

and very small business bidders won 

approximately 40 percent of the 1,479 

licenses for Blocks D, E, and F. In 1999, 

the Commission re-auctioned 347 C, E, 

and F Block licenses. There were 48 

small business winning bidders. In 

2001, the Commission completed the 

auction of 422 C and F Broadband PCS 

licenses in Auction 35. Of the 35 

winning bidders in this auction, 29 

qualified as ‘‘small’’ or ‘‘very small’’ 

businesses. Subsequent events, 

concerning Auction 35, including 

judicial and agency determinations, 

resulted in a total of 163 C and F Block 

licenses being available for grant. In 

2005, the Commission completed an 

auction of 188 C block licenses and 21 

F block licenses in Auction 58. There 

were 24 winning bidders for 217 

licenses. Of the 24 winning bidders, 16 

claimed small business status and won 

156 licenses. In 2007, the Commission 

completed an auction of 33 licenses in 

the A, C, and F Blocks in Auction 71. 

Of the 14 winning bidders, six were 

designated entities. In 2008, the 

Commission completed an auction of 20 

Broadband PCS licenses in the C, D, E 

and F block licenses in Auction 78. 

78. Advanced Wireless Services. In 

2008, the Commission conducted the 

auction of Advanced Wireless Services 

(‘‘AWS’’) licenses. This auction, which 

as designated as Auction 78, offered 35 

licenses in the AWS 1710–1755 MHz 

and 2110–2155 MHz bands (‘‘AWS–1’’). 

The AWS–1 licenses were licenses for 

which there were no winning bids in 

Auction 66. That same year, the 

Commission completed Auction 78. A 

bidder with attributed average annual 

gross revenues that exceeded $15 

million and did not exceed $40 million 

for the preceding three years (‘‘small 

business’’) received a 15 percent 

discount on its winning bid. A bidder 

with attributed average annual gross 

revenues that did not exceed $15 

million for the preceding three years 

(‘‘very small business’’) received a 25 

percent discount on its winning bid. A 

bidder that had combined total assets of 

less than $500 million and combined 

gross revenues of less than $125 million 

in each of the last two years qualified 

for entrepreneur status. Four winning 

bidders that identified themselves as 

very small businesses won 17 licenses. 

Three of the winning bidders that 

identified themselves as a small 

business won five licenses. 

Additionally, one other winning bidder 

that qualified for entrepreneur status 

won 2 licenses. 

79. Narrowband Personal 

Communications Services. In 1994, the 

Commission conducted an auction for 

Narrowband PCS licenses. A second 

auction was also conducted later in 

1994. For purposes of the first two 

Narrowband PCS auctions, ‘‘small 

businesses’’ were entities with average 

gross revenues for the prior three 

calendar years of $40 million or less. 

Through these auctions, the 

Commission awarded a total of 41 

licenses, 11 of which were obtained by 

four small businesses. To ensure 

meaningful participation by small 

business entities in future auctions, the 

Commission adopted a two-tiered small 

business size standard in the 

Narrowband PCS Second Report and 

Order. A ‘‘small business’’ is an entity 

that, together with affiliates and 

controlling interests, has average gross 

revenues for the three preceding years of 

not more than $40 million. A ‘‘very 

small business’’ is an entity that, 

together with affiliates and controlling 

interests, has average gross revenues for 

the three preceding years of not more 

than $15 million. The SBA has 

approved these small business size 

standards. A third auction was 

conducted in 2001. Here, five bidders 

won 317 (Metropolitan Trading Areas 

and nationwide) licenses. Three of these 

claimed status as a small or very small 

entity and won 311 licenses. 

80. Paging (Private and Common 

Carrier). In the Paging Third Report and 

Order, we developed a small business 

size standard for ‘‘small businesses’’ and 

‘‘very small businesses’’ for purposes of 

determining their eligibility for special 

provisions such as bidding credits and 

installment payments. A ‘‘small 

business’’ is an entity that, together with 

its affiliates and controlling principals, 

has average gross revenues not 

exceeding $15 million for the preceding 

three years. Additionally, a ‘‘very small 

business’’ is an entity that, together with 

its affiliates and controlling principals, 

has average gross revenues that are not 

more than $3 million for the preceding 

three years. The SBA has approved 

these small business size standards. 

According to Commission data, 291 

carriers have reported that they are 

engaged in Paging or Messaging Service. 

Of these, an estimated 289 have 1,500 or 

fewer employees, and two have more 

than 1,500 employees. Consequently, 

the Commission estimates that the 

majority of paging providers are small 

entities that may be affected by our 

action. An auction of Metropolitan 

Economic Area licenses commenced on 

February 24, 2000, and closed on March 

2, 2000. Of the 2,499 licenses auctioned, 

985 were sold. Fifty-seven companies 

claiming small business status won 440 

licenses. A subsequent auction of MEA 

and Economic Area (‘‘EA’’) licenses was 

held in the year 2001. Of the 15,514 

licenses auctioned, 5,323 were sold. 

One hundred thirty-two companies 

claiming small business status 

purchased 3,724 licenses. A third 

auction, consisting of 8,874 licenses in 

each of 175 EAs and 1,328 licenses in 

all but three of the 51 MEAs, was held 

in 2003. Seventy-seven bidders claiming 

small or very small business status won 

2,093 licenses. A fourth auction, 

consisting of 9,603 lower and upper 

paging band licenses was held in the 

year 2010. Twenty-nine bidders 

claiming small or very small business 

status won 3,016 licenses. 

81. 220 MHz Radio Service—Phase I 

Licensees. The 220 MHz service has 

both Phase I and Phase II licenses. Phase 

I licensing was conducted by lotteries in 

1992 and 1993. There are approximately 

1,515 such non-nationwide licensees 

and four nationwide licensees currently 

authorized to operate in the 220 MHz 

band. The Commission has not 

developed a small business size 


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standard for small entities specifically 

applicable to such incumbent 220 MHz 

Phase I licensees. To estimate the 

number of such licensees that are small 

businesses, we apply the small business 

size standard under the SBA rules 

applicable to Wireless 

Telecommunications Carriers (except 

Satellite). Under this category, the SBA 

deems a wireless business to be small if 

it has 1,500 or fewer employees. The 

Commission estimates that nearly all 

such licensees are small businesses 

under the SBA’s small business size 

standard that may be affected by rules 

adopted pursuant to the Order. 

82. 220 MHz Radio Service—Phase II 

Licensees. The 220 MHz service has 

both Phase I and Phase II licenses. The 

Phase II 220 MHz service is subject to 

spectrum auctions. In the 220 MHz 

Third Report and Order, we adopted a 

small business size standard for ‘‘small’’ 

and ‘‘very small’’ businesses for 

purposes of determining their eligibility 

for special provisions such as bidding 

credits and installment payments. This 

small business size standard indicates 

that a ‘‘small business’’ is an entity that, 

together with its affiliates and 

controlling principals, has average gross 

revenues not exceeding $15 million for 

the preceding three years. A ‘‘very small 

business’’ is an entity that, together with 

its affiliates and controlling principals, 

has average gross revenues that do not 

exceed $3 million for the preceding 

three years. The SBA has approved 

these small business size standards. 

Auctions of Phase II licenses 

commenced on September 15, 1998, and 

closed on October 22, 1998. In the first 

auction, 908 licenses were auctioned in 

three different-sized geographic areas: 

Three nationwide licenses, 30 Regional 

Economic Area Group (EAG) Licenses, 

and 875 Economic Area (EA) Licenses. 

Of the 908 licenses auctioned, 693 were 

sold. Thirty-nine small businesses won 

licenses in the first 220 MHz auction. 

The second auction included 225 

licenses: 216 EA licenses and 9 EAG 

licenses. Fourteen companies claiming 

small business status won 158 licenses. 

83. Specialized Mobile Radio. The 

Commission awards small business 

bidding credits in auctions for 

Specialized Mobile Radio (‘‘SMR’’) 

geographic area licenses in the 800 MHz 

and 900 MHz bands to entities that had 

revenues of no more than $15 million in 

each of the three previous calendar 

years. The Commission awards very 

small business bidding credits to 

entities that had revenues of no more 

than $3 million in each of the three 

previous calendar years. The SBA has 

approved these small business size 

standards for the 800 MHz and 900 MHz 

SMR Services. The Commission has 

held auctions for geographic area 

licenses in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz 

bands. The 900 MHz SMR auction was 

completed in 1996. Sixty bidders 

claiming that they qualified as small 

businesses under the $15 million size 

standard won 263 geographic area 

licenses in the 900 MHz SMR band. The 

800 MHz SMR auction for the upper 200 

channels was conducted in 1997. Ten 

bidders claiming that they qualified as 

small businesses under the $15 million 

size standard won 38 geographic area 

licenses for the upper 200 channels in 

the 800 MHz SMR band. A second 

auction for the 800 MHz band was 

conducted in 2002 and included 23 BEA 

licenses. One bidder claiming small 

business status won five licenses. 

84. The auction of the 1,053 800 MHz 

SMR geographic area licenses for the 

General Category channels was 

conducted in 2000. Eleven bidders won 

108 geographic area licenses for the 

General Category channels in the 800 

MHz SMR band qualified as small 

businesses under the $15 million size 

standard. In an auction completed in 

2000, a total of 2,800 Economic Area 

licenses in the lower 80 channels of the 

800 MHz SMR service were awarded. Of 

the 22 winning bidders, 19 claimed 

small business status and won 129 

licenses. Thus, combining all three 

auctions, 40 winning bidders for 

geographic licenses in the 800 MHz 

SMR band claimed status as small 

business. 

85. In addition, there are numerous 

incumbent site-by-site SMR licensees 

and licensees with extended 

implementation authorizations in the 

800 and 900 MHz bands. We do not 

know how many firms provide 800 MHz 

or 900 MHz geographic area SMR 

pursuant to extended implementation 

authorizations, nor how many of these 

providers have annual revenues of no 

more than $15 million. One firm has 

over $15 million in revenues. In 

addition, we do not know how many of 

these firms have 1,500 or fewer 

employees. We assume, for purposes of 

this analysis, that all of the remaining 

existing extended implementation 

authorizations are held by small 

entities, as that small business size 

standard is approved by the SBA. 

86. Broadband Radio Service and 

Educational Broadband Service. 

Broadband Radio Service systems, 

previously referred to as Multipoint 

Distribution Service (‘‘MDS’’) and 

Multichannel Multipoint Distribution 

Service (‘‘MMDS’’) systems, and 

‘‘wireless cable,’’ transmit video 

programming to subscribers and provide 

two-way high speed data operations 

using the microwave frequencies of the 

Broadband Radio Service (‘‘BRS’’) and 

Educational Broadband Service (‘‘EBS’’) 

(previously referred to as the 

Instructional Television Fixed Service 

(‘‘ITFS’’)). In connection with the 1996 

BRS auction, the Commission 

established a small business size 

standard as an entity that had annual 

average gross revenues of no more than 

$40 million in the previous three 

calendar years. The BRS auctions 

resulted in 67 successful bidders 

obtaining licensing opportunities for 

493 Basic Trading Areas (‘‘BTAs’’). Of 

the 67 auction winners, 61 met the 

definition of a small business. BRS also 

includes licensees of stations authorized 

prior to the auction. At this time, we 

estimate that of the 61 small business 

BRS auction winners, 48 remain small 

business licensees. In addition to the 48 

small businesses that hold BTA 

authorizations, there are approximately 

392 incumbent BRS licensees that are 

considered small entities. After adding 

the number of small business auction 

licensees to the number of incumbent 

licensees not already counted, we find 

that there are currently approximately 

440 BRS licensees that are defined as 

small businesses under either the SBA 

or the Commission’s rules. The 

Commission has adopted three levels of 

bidding credits for BRS: (i) A bidder 

with attributed average annual gross 

revenues that exceed $15 million and do 

not exceed $40 million for the preceding 

three years (small business) is eligible to 

receive a 15 percent discount on its 

winning bid; (ii) a bidder with 

attributed average annual gross revenues 

that exceed $3 million and do not 

exceed $15 million for the preceding 

three years (very small business) is 

eligible to receive a 25 percent discount 

on its winning bid; and (iii) a bidder 

with attributed average annual gross 

revenues that do not exceed $3 million 

for the preceding three years 

(entrepreneur) is eligible to receive a 35 

percent discount on its winning bid. In 

2009, the Commission conducted 

Auction 86, which offered 78 BRS 

licenses. Auction 86 concluded with ten 

bidders winning 61 licenses. Of the ten, 

two bidders claimed small business 

status and won 4 licenses; one bidder 

claimed very small business status and 

won three licenses; and two bidders 

claimed entrepreneur status and won 

six licenses. 

87. In addition, the SBA’s Cable 

Television Distribution Services small 

business size standard is applicable to 

EBS. There are presently 2,032 EBS 

licensees. All but 100 of these licenses 

are held by educational institutions. 


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Educational institutions are included in 

this analysis as small entities. Thus, we 

estimate that at least 1,932 licensees are 

small businesses. Since 2007, Cable 

Television Distribution Services have 

been defined within the broad economic 

census category of Wired 

Telecommunications Carriers; that 

category is defined as follows: ‘‘This 

industry comprises establishments 

primarily engaged in operating and/or 

providing access to transmission 

facilities and infrastructure that they 

own and/or lease for the transmission of 

voice, data, text, sound, and video using 

wired telecommunications networks. 

Transmission facilities may be based on 

a single technology or a combination of 

technologies.’’ The SBA defines a small 

business size standard for this category 

as any such firms having 1,500 or fewer 

employees. The SBA has developed a 

small business size standard for this 

category, which is: all such firms having 

1,500 or fewer employees. According to 

Census Bureau data for 2007, there were 

a total of 955 firms in this previous 

category that operated for the entire 

year. Of this total, 939 firms had 

employment of 999 or fewer employees, 

and 16 firms had employment of 1000 

employees or more. Thus, under this 

size standard, the majority of firms can 

be considered small and may be affected 

by rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

88. Lower 700 MHz Band Licenses. 

The Commission previously adopted 

criteria for defining three groups of 

small businesses for purposes of 

determining their eligibility for special 

provisions such as bidding credits. The 

Commission defined a ‘‘small business’’ 

as an entity that, together with its 

affiliates and controlling principals, has 

average gross revenues not exceeding 

$40 million for the preceding three 

years. A ‘‘very small business’’ is 

defined as an entity that, together with 

its affiliates and controlling principals, 

has average gross revenues that are not 

more than $15 million for the preceding 

three years. Additionally, the Lower 700 

MHz Band had a third category of small 

business status for Metropolitan/Rural 

Service Area (‘‘MSA/RSA’’) licenses, 

identified as ‘‘entrepreneur’’ and 

defined as an entity that, together with 

its affiliates and controlling principals, 

has average gross revenues that are not 

more than $3 million for the preceding 

three years. The SBA approved these 

small size standards. The Commission 

conducted an auction in 2002 of 740 

Lower 700 MHz Band licenses (one 

license in each of the 734 MSAs/RSAs 

and one license in each of the six 

Economic Area Groupings (EAGs)). Of 

the 740 licenses available for auction, 

484 licenses were sold to 102 winning 

bidders. Seventy-two of the winning 

bidders claimed small business, very 

small business or entrepreneur status 

and won a total of 329 licenses. The 

Commission conducted a second Lower 

700 MHz Band auction in 2003 that 

included 256 licenses: 5 EAG licenses 

and 476 Cellular Market Area licenses. 

Seventeen winning bidders claimed 

small or very small business status and 

won 60 licenses, and nine winning 

bidders claimed entrepreneur status and 

won 154 licenses. In 2005, the 

Commission completed an auction of 5 

licenses in the Lower 700 MHz Band, 

designated Auction 60. There were three 

winning bidders for five licenses. All 

three winning bidders claimed small 

business status. 

89. In 2007, the Commission 

reexamined its rules governing the 700 

MHz band in the 700 MHz Second 

Report and Order. The 700 MHz Second 

Report and Order revised the band plan 

for the commercial (including Guard 

Band) and public safety spectrum, 

adopted services rules, including 

stringent build-out requirements, an 

open platform requirement on the C 

Block, and a requirement on the D Block 

licensee to construct and operate a 

nationwide, interoperable wireless 

broadband network for public safety 

users. An auction of A, B and E block 

licenses in the Lower 700 MHz band 

was held in 2008. Twenty winning 

bidders claimed small business status 

(those with attributable average annual 

gross revenues that exceed $15 million 

and do not exceed $40 million for the 

preceding three years). Thirty three 

winning bidders claimed very small 

business status (those with attributable 

average annual gross revenues that do 

not exceed $15 million for the preceding 

three years). In 2011, the Commission 

conducted Auction 92, which offered 16 

Lower 700 MHz band licenses that had 

been made available in Auction 73 but 

either remained unsold or were licenses 

on which a winning bidder defaulted. 

Two of the seven winning bidders in 

Auction 92 claimed very small business 

status, winning a total of four licenses. 

90. Upper 700 MHz Band Licenses. In 

the 700 MHz Second Report and Order, 

the Commission revised its rules 

regarding Upper 700 MHz band 

licenses. In 2008, the Commission 

conducted Auction 73 in which C and 

D block licenses in the Upper 700 MHz 

band were available. Three winning 

bidders claimed very small business 

status (those with attributable average 

annual gross revenues that do not 

exceed $15 million for the preceding 

three years). 

91. 700 MHz Guard Band Licensees. 

In the 700 MHz Guard Band Order, we 

adopted a small business size standard 

for ‘‘small businesses’’ and ‘‘very small 

businesses’’ for purposes of determining 

their eligibility for special provisions 

such as bidding credits and installment 

payments. A ‘‘small business’’ is an 

entity that, together with its affiliates 

and controlling principals, has average 

gross revenues not exceeding $40 

million for the preceding three years. 

Additionally, a ‘‘very small business’’ is 

an entity that, together with its affiliates 

and controlling principals, has average 

gross revenues that are not more than 

$15 million for the preceding three 

years. An auction of 52 Major Economic 

Area (MEA) licenses commenced on 

September 6, 2000, and closed on 

September 21, 2000. Of the 104 licenses 

auctioned, 96 licenses were sold to nine 

bidders. Five of these bidders were 

small businesses that won a total of 26 

licenses. A second auction of 700 MHz 

Guard Band licenses commenced on 

February 13, 2001 and closed on 

February 21, 2001. All eight of the 

licenses auctioned were sold to three 

bidders. One of these bidders was a 

small business that won a total of two 

licenses. 

92. Cellular Radiotelephone Service. 

Auction 77 was held to resolve one 

group of mutually exclusive 

applications for Cellular Radiotelephone 

Service licenses for unserved areas in 

New Mexico. Bidding credits for 

designated entities were not available in 

Auction 77. In 2008, the Commission 

completed the closed auction of one 

unserved service area in the Cellular 

Radiotelephone Service, designated as 

Auction 77. Auction 77 concluded with 

one provisionally winning bid for the 

unserved area totaling $25,002. 

93. Private Land Mobile Radio 

(‘‘PLMR’’). PLMR systems serve an 

essential role in a range of industrial, 

business, land transportation, and 

public safety activities. These radios are 

used by companies of all sizes operating 

in all U.S. business categories, and are 

often used in support of the licensee’s 

primary (non-telecommunications) 

business operations. For the purpose of 

determining whether a licensee of a 

PLMR system is a small business as 

defined by the SBA, we use the broad 

census category, Wireless 

Telecommunications Carriers (except 

Satellite). This definition provides that 

a small entity is any such entity 

employing no more than 1,500 persons. 

The Commission does not require PLMR 

licensees to disclose information about 

number of employees, so the 

Commission does not have information 

that could be used to determine how 


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2584 Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 

many PLMR licensees constitute small 

entities under this definition. We note 

that PLMR licensees generally use the 

licensed facilities in support of other 

business activities, and therefore, it 

would also be helpful to assess PLMR 

licensees under the standards applied to 

the particular industry subsector to 

which the licensee belongs. 

94. As of March 2010, there were 

424,162 PLMR licensees operating 

921,909 transmitters in the PLMR bands 

below 512 MHz. We note that any entity 

engaged in a commercial activity is 

eligible to hold a PLMR license, and that 

any revised rules in this context could 

therefore potentially impact small 

entities covering a great variety of 

industries. 

95. Rural Radiotelephone Service. The 

Commission has not adopted a size 

standard for small businesses specific to 

the Rural Radiotelephone Service. A 

significant subset of the Rural 

Radiotelephone Service is the Basic 

Exchange Telephone Radio System 

(‘‘BETRS’’). In the present context, we 

will use the SBA’s small business size 

standard applicable to Wireless 

Telecommunications Carriers (except 

Satellite), i.e., an entity employing no 

more than 1,500 persons. There are 

approximately 1,000 licensees in the 

Rural Radiotelephone Service, and the 

Commission estimates that there are 

1,000 or fewer small entity licensees in 

the Rural Radiotelephone Service that 

may be affected by the rules and 

policies proposed herein. 

96. Air-Ground Radiotelephone 

Service. The Commission has not 

adopted a small business size standard 

specific to the Air-Ground 

Radiotelephone Service. We will use 

SBA’s small business size standard 

applicable to Wireless 

Telecommunications Carriers (except 

Satellite), i.e., an entity employing no 

more than 1,500 persons. There are 

approximately 100 licensees in the AirGround Radiotelephone Service, and we 

estimate that almost all of them qualify 

as small under the SBA small business 

size standard and may be affected by 

rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

97. Aviation and Marine Radio 

Services. Small businesses in the 

aviation and marine radio services use 

a very high frequency (VHF) marine or 

aircraft radio and, as appropriate, an 

emergency position-indicating radio 

beacon (and/or radar) or an emergency 

locator transmitter. The Commission has 

not developed a small business size 

standard specifically applicable to these 

small businesses. For purposes of this 

analysis, the Commission uses the SBA 

small business size standard for the 

category Wireless Telecommunications 

Carriers (except Satellite), which is 

1,500 or fewer employees. Census data 

for 2007, which supersede data 

contained in the 2002 Census, show that 

there were 1,383 firms that operated that 

year. Of those 1,383, 1,368 had fewer 

than 100 employees, and 15 firms had 

more than 100 employees. Most 

applicants for recreational licenses are 

individuals. Approximately 581,000 

ship station licensees and 131,000 

aircraft station licensees operate 

domestically and are not subject to the 

radio carriage requirements of any 

statute or treaty. For purposes of our 

evaluations in this analysis, we estimate 

that there are up to approximately 

712,000 licensees that are small 

businesses (or individuals) under the 

SBA standard. In addition, between 

December 3, 1998 and December 14, 

1998, the Commission held an auction 

of 42 VHF Public Coast licenses in the 

157.1875–157.4500 MHz (ship transmit) 

and 161.775–162.0125 MHz (coast 

transmit) bands. For purposes of the 

auction, the Commission defined a 

‘‘small’’ business as an entity that, 

together with controlling interests and 

affiliates, has average gross revenues for 

the preceding three years not to exceed 

$15 million dollars. In addition, a ‘‘very 

small’’ business is one that, together 

with controlling interests and affiliates, 

has average gross revenues for the 

preceding three years not to exceed $3 

million dollars. There are approximately 

10,672 licensees in the Marine Coast 

Service, and the Commission estimates 

that almost all of them qualify as 

‘‘small’’ businesses under the above 

special small business size standards 

and may be affected by rules adopted 

pursuant to the Order. 

98. Fixed Microwave Services. Fixed 

microwave services include common 

carrier, private operational-fixed, and 

broadcast auxiliary radio services. At 

present, there are approximately 22,015 

common carrier fixed licensees and 

61,670 private operational-fixed 

licensees and broadcast auxiliary radio 

licensees in the microwave services. 

The Commission has not created a size 

standard for a small business 

specifically with respect to fixed 

microwave services. For purposes of 

this analysis, the Commission uses the 

SBA small business size standard for 

Wireless Telecommunications Carriers 

(except Satellite), which is 1,500 or 

fewer employees. The Commission does 

not have data specifying the number of 

these licensees that have more than 

1,500 employees, and thus is unable at 

this time to estimate with greater 

precision the number of fixed 

microwave service licensees that would 

qualify as small business concerns 

under the SBA’s small business size 

standard. Consequently, the 

Commission estimates that there are up 

to 22,015 common carrier fixed 

licensees and up to 61,670 private 

operational-fixed licensees and 

broadcast auxiliary radio licensees in 

the microwave services that may be 

small and may be affected by the rules 

and policies adopted herein. We note, 

however, that the common carrier 

microwave fixed licensee category 

includes some large entities. 

99. Offshore Radiotelephone Service. 

This service operates on several UHF 

television broadcast channels that are 

not used for television broadcasting in 

the coastal areas of states bordering the 

Gulf of Mexico. There are presently 

approximately 55 licensees in this 

service. The Commission is unable to 

estimate at this time the number of 

licensees that would qualify as small 

under the SBA’s small business size 

standard for the category of Wireless 

Telecommunications Carriers (except 

Satellite). Under that SBA small 

business size standard, a business is 

small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. 

Census data for 2007, which supersede 

data contained in the 2002 Census, 

show that there were 1,383 firms that 

operated that year. Of those 1,383, 1,368 

had fewer than 100 employees, and 15 

firms had more than 100 employees. 

Thus, under this category and the 

associated small business size standard, 

the majority of firms can be considered 

small. 

100. 39 GHz Service. The Commission 

created a special small business size 

standard for 39 GHz licenses—an entity 

that has average gross revenues of $40 

million or less in the three previous 

calendar years. An additional size 

standard for ‘‘very small business’’ is: 

An entity that, together with affiliates, 

has average gross revenues of not more 

than $15 million for the preceding three 

calendar years. The SBA has approved 

these small business size standards. The 

auction of the 2,173 39 GHz licenses 

began on April 12, 2000 and closed on 

May 8, 2000. The 18 bidders who 

claimed small business status won 849 

licenses. Consequently, the Commission 

estimates that 18 or fewer 39 GHz 

licensees are small entities that may be 

affected by rules adopted pursuant to 

the Report and Order. 

101. Local Multipoint Distribution 

Service. Local Multipoint Distribution 

Service (‘‘LMDS’’) is a fixed broadband 

point-to-multipoint microwave service 

that provides for two-way video 

telecommunications. The auction of the 

986 LMDS licenses began and closed in 

1998. The Commission established a 


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small business size standard for LMDS 

licenses as an entity that has average 

gross revenues of less than $40 million 

in the three previous calendar years. An 

additional small business size standard 

for ‘‘very small business’’ was added as 

an entity that, together with its affiliates, 

has average gross revenues of not more 

than $15 million for the preceding three 

calendar years. The SBA has approved 

these small business size standards in 

the context of LMDS auctions. There 

were 93 winning bidders that qualified 

as small entities in the LMDS auctions. 

A total of 93 small and very small 

business bidders won approximately 

277 A Block licenses and 387 B Block 

licenses. In 1999, the Commission reauctioned 161 licenses; there were 32 

small and very small businesses 

winning that won 119 licenses. 

102. 218–219 MHz Service. The first 

auction of 218–219 MHz spectrum 

resulted in 170 entities winning licenses 

for 594 Metropolitan Statistical Area 

(MSA) licenses. Of the 594 licenses, 557 

were won by entities qualifying as a 

small business. For that auction, the 

small business size standard was an 

entity that, together with its affiliates, 

has no more than a $6 million net worth 

and, after federal income taxes 

(excluding any carry over losses), has no 

more than $2 million in annual profits 

each year for the previous two years. In 

the 218–219 MHz Report and Order and 

Memorandum Opinion and Order, we 

established a small business size 

standard for a ‘‘small business’’ as an 

entity that, together with its affiliates 

and persons or entities that hold 

interests in such an entity and their 

affiliates, has average annual gross 

revenues not to exceed $15 million for 

the preceding three years. A ‘‘very small 

business’’ is defined as an entity that, 

together with its affiliates and persons 

or entities, that hold interests in such an 

entity and its affiliates, has average 

annual gross revenues not to exceed $3 

million for the preceding three years. 

These size standards will be used in 

future auctions of 218–219 MHz 

spectrum. 

103. 2.3 GHz Wireless 

Communications Services. This service 

can be used for fixed, mobile, 

radiolocation, and digital audio 

broadcasting satellite uses. The 

Commission defined ‘‘small business’’ 

for the wireless communications 

services (‘‘WCS’’) auction as an entity 

with average gross revenues of $40 

million for each of the three preceding 

years, and a ‘‘very small business’’ as an 

entity with average gross revenues of 

$15 million for each of the three 

preceding years. The SBA has approved 

these definitions. The Commission 

auctioned geographic area licenses in 

the WCS service. In the auction, which 

was conducted in 1997, there were 

seven bidders that won 31 licenses that 

qualified as very small business entities, 

and one bidder that won one license 

that qualified as a small business entity. 

104. 1670–1675 MHz Band. An 

auction for one license in the 1670–1675 

MHz band was conducted in 2003. The 

Commission defined a ‘‘small business’’ 

as an entity with attributable average 

annual gross revenues of not more than 

$40 million for the preceding three 

years and thus would be eligible for a 

15 percent discount on its winning bid 

for the 1670–1675 MHz band license. 

Further, the Commission defined a 

‘‘very small business’’ as an entity with 

attributable average annual gross 

revenues of not more than $15 million 

for the preceding three years and thus 

would be eligible to receive a 25 percent 

discount on its winning bid for the 

1670–1675 MHz band license. One 

license was awarded. The winning 

bidder was not a small entity. 

105. 3650–3700 MHz band. In March 

2005, the Commission released a Report 

and Order and Memorandum Opinion 

and Order that provides for nationwide, 

non-exclusive licensing of terrestrial 

operations, utilizing contention-based 

technologies, in the 3650 MHz band 

(i.e., 3650–3700 MHz). As of April 2010, 

more than 1270 licenses have been 

granted and more than 7433 sites have 

been registered. The Commission has 

not developed a definition of small 

entities applicable to 3650–3700 MHz 

band nationwide, non-exclusive 

licensees. However, we estimate that the 

majority of these licensees are Internet 

Access Service Providers (ISPs) and that 

most of those licensees are small 

businesses. 

106. 24 GHz—Incumbent Licensees. 

This analysis may affect incumbent 

licensees who were relocated to the 24 

GHz band from the 18 GHz band, and 

applicants who wish to provide services 

in the 24 GHz band. For this service, the 

Commission uses the SBA small 

business size standard for the category 

‘‘Wireless Telecommunications Carriers 

(except satellite),’’ which is 1,500 or 

fewer employees. To gauge small 

business prevalence for these cable 

services we must, however, use the most 

current census data. Census data for 

2007, which supersede data contained 

in the 2002 Census, show that there 

were 1,383 firms that operated that year. 

Of those 1,383, 1,368 had fewer than 

100 employees, and 15 firms had more 

than 100 employees. Thus under this 

category and the associated small 

business size standard, the majority of 

firms can be considered small. The 

Commission notes that the Census’ use 

of the classifications ‘‘firms’’ does not 

track the number of ‘‘licenses.’’ The 

Commission believes that there are only 

two licensees in the 24 GHz band that 

were relocated from the 18 GHz band, 

Teligent and TRW, Inc. It is our 

understanding that Teligent and its 

related companies have less than 1,500 

employees, though this may change in 

the future. TRW is not a small entity. 

Thus, only one incumbent licensee in 

the 24 GHz band is a small business 

entity. 

107. 24 GHz—Future Licensees. With 

respect to new applicants in the 24 GHz 

band, the size standard for ‘‘small 

business’’ is an entity that, together with 

controlling interests and affiliates, has 

average annual gross revenues for the 

three preceding years not in excess of 

$15 million. ‘‘Very small business’’ in 

the 24 GHz band is an entity that, 

together with controlling interests and 

affiliates, has average gross revenues not 

exceeding $3 million for the preceding 

three years. The SBA has approved 

these small business size standards. 

These size standards will apply to a 

future 24 GHz license auction, if held. 

108. Satellite Telecommunications. 

Since 2007, the SBA has recognized 

satellite firms within this revised 

category, with a small business size 

standard of $15 million. The most 

current Census Bureau data are from the 

economic census of 2007, and we will 

use those figures to gauge the 

prevalence of small businesses in this 

category. Those size standards are for 

the two census categories of ‘‘Satellite 

Telecommunications’’ and ‘‘Other 

Telecommunications.’’ Under the 

‘‘Satellite Telecommunications’’ 

category, a business is considered small 

if it had $15 million or less in average 

annual receipts. Under the ‘‘Other 

Telecommunications’’ category, a 

business is considered small if it had 

$25 million or less in average annual 

receipts. 

109. The first category of Satellite 

Telecommunications ‘‘comprises 

establishments primarily engaged in 

providing point-to-point 

telecommunications services to other 

establishments in the 

telecommunications and broadcasting 

industries by forwarding and receiving 

communications signals via a system of 

satellites or reselling satellite 

telecommunications.’’ For this category, 

Census Bureau data for 2007 show that 

there were a total of 512 firms that 

operated for the entire year. Of this 

total, 464 firms had annual receipts of 

under $10 million, and 18 firms had 

receipts of $10 million to $24,999,999. 

Consequently, we estimate that the 


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majority of Satellite 

Telecommunications firms are small 

entities that might be affected by rules 

adopted pursuant to the Order. 

110. The second category of Other 

Telecommunications ‘‘primarily 

engaged in providing specialized 

telecommunications services, such as 

satellite tracking, communications 

telemetry, and radar station operation. 

This industry also includes 

establishments primarily engaged in 

providing satellite terminal stations and 

associated facilities connected with one 

or more terrestrial systems and capable 

of transmitting telecommunications to, 

and receiving telecommunications from, 

satellite systems. Establishments 

providing Internet services or voice over 

Internet protocol (VoIP) services via 

client-supplied telecommunications 

connections are also included in this 

industry.’’ For this category, Census 

Bureau data for 2007 show that there 

were a total of 2,383 firms that operated 

for the entire year. Of this total, 2,346 

firms had annual receipts of under $25 

million. Consequently, we estimate that 

the majority of Other 

Telecommunications firms are small 

entities that might be affected by our 

action. 

111. Cable and Other Program 

Distribution. Since 2007, these services 

have been defined within the broad 

economic census category of Wired 

Telecommunications Carriers; that 

category is defined as follows: ‘‘This 

industry comprises establishments 

primarily engaged in operating and/or 

providing access to transmission 

facilities and infrastructure that they 

own and/or lease for the transmission of 

voice, data, text, sound, and video using 

wired telecommunications networks. 

Transmission facilities may be based on 

a single technology or a combination of 

technologies.’’ The SBA has developed 

a small business size standard for this 

category, which is: All such firms 

having 1,500 or fewer employees. 

According to Census Bureau data for 

2007, there were a total of 955 firms in 

this previous category that operated for 

the entire year. Of this total, 939 firms 

had employment of 999 or fewer 

employees, and 16 firms had 

employment of 1000 employees or 

more. Thus, under this size standard, 

the majority of firms can be considered 

small and may be affected by rules 

adopted pursuant to the Order. 

112. Cable Companies and Systems. 

The Commission has developed its own 

small business size standards, for the 

purpose of cable rate regulation. Under 

the Commission’s rules, a ‘‘small cable 

company’’ is one serving 400,000 or 

fewer subscribers, nationwide. Industry 

data indicate that, of 1,076 cable 

operators nationwide, all but eleven are 

small under this size standard. In 

addition, under the Commission’s rules, 

a ‘‘small system’’ is a cable system 

serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers. 

Industry data indicate that, of 7,208 

systems nationwide, 6,139 systems have 

fewer than 10,000 subscribers, and an 

additional 379 systems have 10,000– 

19,999 subscribers. Thus, under this 

second size standard, most cable 

systems are small and may be affected 

by rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

113. Cable System Operators. The Act 

also contains a size standard for small 

cable system operators, which is ‘‘a 

cable operator that, directly or through 

an affiliate, serves in the aggregate less 

than 1 percent of all subscribers in the 

United States and is not affiliated with 

any entity or entities whose gross 

annual revenues in the aggregate exceed 

$250,000,000.’’ The Commission has 

determined that an operator serving 

fewer than 677,000 subscribers shall be 

deemed a small operator, if its annual 

revenues, when combined with the total 

annual revenues of all its affiliates, do 

not exceed $250 million in the 

aggregate. Industry data indicate that, of 

1,076 cable operators nationwide, all 

but ten are small under this size 

standard. We note that the Commission 

neither requests nor collects information 

on whether cable system operators are 

affiliated with entities whose gross 

annual revenues exceed $250 million, 

and therefore we are unable to estimate 

more accurately the number of cable 

system operators that would qualify as 

small under this size standard. 

114. Open Video Services. The open 

video system (‘‘OVS’’) framework was 

established in 1996, and is one of four 

statutorily recognized options for the 

provision of video programming 

services by local exchange carriers. The 

OVS framework provides opportunities 

for the distribution of video 

programming other than through cable 

systems. Because OVS operators provide 

subscription services, OVS falls within 

the SBA small business size standard 

covering cable services, which is 

‘‘Wired Telecommunications Carriers.’’ 

The SBA has developed a small 

business size standard for this category, 

which is: All such firms having 1,500 or 

fewer employees. According to Census 

Bureau data for 2007, there were a total 

of 955 firms in this previous category 

that operated for the entire year. Of this 

total, 939 firms had employment of 999 

or fewer employees, and 16 firms had 

employment of 1000 employees or 

more. Thus, under this second size 

standard, most cable systems are small 

and may be affected by rules adopted 

pursuant to the Order. In addition, we 

note that the Commission has certified 

some OVS operators, with some now 

providing service. Broadband service 

providers (‘‘BSPs’’) are currently the 

only significant holders of OVS 

certifications or local OVS franchises. 

The Commission does not have 

financial or employment information 

regarding the entities authorized to 

provide OVS, some of which may not 

yet be operational. Thus, again, at least 

some of the OVS operators may qualify 

as small entities. 

115. Internet Service Providers. Since 

2007, these services have been defined 

within the broad economic census 

category of Wired Telecommunications 

Carriers; that category is defined as 

follows: ‘‘This industry comprises 

establishments primarily engaged in 

operating and/or providing access to 

transmission facilities and infrastructure 

that they own and/or lease for the 

transmission of voice, data, text, sound, 

and video using wired 

telecommunications networks. 

Transmission facilities may be based on 

a single technology or a combination of 

technologies.’’ The SBA has developed 

a small business size standard for this 

category, which is: All such firms 

having 1,500 or fewer employees. 

According to Census Bureau data for 

2007, there were 3,188 firms in this 

category, total, that operated for the 

entire year. Of this total, 3144 firms had 

employment of 999 or fewer employees, 

and 44 firms had employment of 1000 

employees or more. Thus, under this 

size standard, the majority of firms can 

be considered small. In addition, 

according to Census Bureau data for 

2007, there were a total of 396 firms in 

the category Internet Service Providers 

(broadband) that operated for the entire 

year. Of this total, 394 firms had 

employment of 999 or fewer employees, 

and two firms had employment of 1000 

employees or more. Consequently, we 

estimate that the majority of these firms 

are small entities that may be affected 

by rules adopted pursuant to the Order. 

116. Internet Publishing and 

Broadcasting and Web Search Portals. 

Our action may pertain to 

interconnected VoIP services, which 

could be provided by entities that 

provide other services such as email, 

online gaming, web browsing, video 

conferencing, instant messaging, and 

other, similar IP-enabled services. The 

Commission has not adopted a size 

standard for entities that create or 

provide these types of services or 

applications. However, the Census 

Bureau has identified firms that 

‘‘primarily engaged in (1) publishing 

and/or broadcasting content on the 


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Internet exclusively or (2) operating 

Web sites that use a search engine to 

generate and maintain extensive 

databases of Internet addresses and 

content in an easily searchable format 

(and known as Web search portals).’’ 

The SBA has developed a small 

business size standard for this category, 

which is: All such firms having 500 or 

fewer employees. According to Census 

Bureau data for 2007, there were 2,705 

firms in this category that operated for 

the entire year. Of this total, 2,682 firms 

had employment of 499 or fewer 

employees, and 23 firms had 

employment of 500 employees or more. 

Consequently, we estimate that the 

majority of these firms are small entities 

that may be affected by rules adopted 

pursuant to the Order. 

117. Data Processing, Hosting, and 

Related Services. Entities in this 

category ‘‘primarily * * * provid[e] 

infrastructure for hosting or data 

processing services.’’ The SBA has 

developed a small business size 

standard for this category; that size 

standard is $25 million or less in 

average annual receipts. According to 

Census Bureau data for 2007, there were 

8,060 firms in this category that 

operated for the entire year. Of these, 

7,744 had annual receipts of under 

$24,999,999. Consequently, we estimate 

that the majority of these firms are small 

entities that may be affected by rules 

adopted pursuant to the Order. 

118. All Other Information Services. 

The Census Bureau defines this industry 

as including ‘‘establishments primarily 

engaged in providing other information 

services (except news syndicates, 

libraries, archives, Internet publishing 

and broadcasting, and Web search 

portals).’’ Our action pertains to 

interconnected VoIP services, which 

could be provided by entities that 

provide other services such as email, 

online gaming, web browsing, video 

conferencing, instant messaging, and 

other, similar IP-enabled services. The 

SBA has developed a small business 

size standard for this category; that size 

standard is $7.0 million or less in 

average annual receipts. According to 

Census Bureau data for 2007, there were 

367 firms in this category that operated 

for the entire year. Of these, 334 had 

annual receipts of under $5.0 million, 

and an additional 11 firms had receipts 

of between $5 million and $9,999,999. 

Consequently, we estimate that the 

majority of these firms are small entities 

that may be affected by our action. 

4. Description of Projected Reporting, 

Recordkeeping, and Other Compliance 

Requirements 

119. The data, information and 

document collection required by this 

Report and Order falls into five general 

categories: market structure, pricing, 

demand (i.e., observed sales and 

purchases), terms and conditions, and 

competition and pricing decisions. 

120. Market structure data consists of, 

among other things, the situs and type 

of facilities owned by a provider (or 

leased subject to an indefeasible right of 

use) capable of providing special access, 

by sold and potential capacity and 

ownership, and the proximity of such 

facilities to sources of demand. We also 

require incumbent LEC providers to 

submit data concerning the number, 

nature, and situs of UNEs sold. In 

addition, we also require additional 

market structure data from competitive 

providers, such as detailed information 

related to non-price factors that may 

impact where special access providers 

build facilities or expand their network 

via UNEs and the history of their facility 

deployments in a sample of locations 

they serve. 

121. Pricing data includes the 

quantities sold and prices charged for 

special access services, by circuit 

element, and information regarding the 

regulatory environment for incumbent 

LECs. 

122. Demand data includes, among 

other things, data that identify the 

bandwidth of the special access services 

sold or purchased, the locations being 

served, and other material facts, such as 

where those purchases occur (e.g., 

buildings, cell towers) and the nature of 

the purchaser (e.g., provider or end 

user). 

123. Terms and conditions data and 

information include, but are not limited 

to, information regarding contracts or 

generally available plans for special 

access services that offer discounts, 

circuit portability, or other 

competitively relevant benefits, and 

whether the terms and conditions 

associated with those offerings may 

inhibit a buyer’s ability to switch to 

other providers, which in turn may 

inhibit facilities-based entry into special 

access markets. 

124. Competition and pricing data, 

information and documents include, but 

are not limited to, those materials 

related to requests for proposals, 

advertising and marketing materials, 

and in very limited circumstances, 

pricing decision documents. 

125. Best efforts business broadband 

Internet access services include, but are 

not limited to, data showing where a 

provider or entity provides such 

services, as well as price lists. 

126. Questions related to terms and 

conditions, competition and pricing 

decisions will span a variety of 

timeframes specific to the issue 

addressed. The majority of the market 

structure, pricing and demand data will 

be collected for a two-year period. This 

period of time allows the analysis to 

control for factors that may vary 

substantially across geographic areas, 

but not within a given geographic area. 

5. Steps Taken To Minimize Significant 

Economic Impact on Small Entities, and 

Significant Alternatives Considered 

127. The RFA requires an agency to 

describe any significant alternatives that 

it has considered in reaching its 

approach, which may include the 

following four alternatives, among 

others: (1) The establishment of 

differing compliance or reporting 

requirements or timetables that take into 

account the resources available to small 

entities; (2) the clarification, 

consolidation, or simplification of 

compliance or reporting requirements 

under the rule for small entities; (3) the 

use of performance, rather than design, 

standards; and (4) an exemption from 

coverage of the rule, or any part thereof, 

for small entities. 

128. Entities required to respond to 

this data request include all providers 

and purchasers of special access 

services as well as some entities that 

provide best efforts business broadband 

Internet access services. By ‘‘providers,’’ 

we mean any entity subject to the 

Commission’s jurisdiction under the 

Communications Act, as amended, that 

provides special access services or 

provides a connection that is capable of 

providing special access services. By 

‘‘purchasers,’’ we mean any entity 

subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction 

under the Communications Act, as 

amended, that purchases special access 

services. Providers and purchasers may 

include price cap regulated incumbent 

LECs, competitive LECs, interexchange 

carriers, cable operators, and companies 

that provide fixed wireless 

communications services. Some entities 

that fall under the Commission’s 

jurisdiction and provide best efforts 

broadband Internet access services, but 

fall outside our definitions of 

‘‘provider’’ and ‘‘purchaser,’’ are also 

required to respond. 

129. Because the focus of this 

proceeding is on the regulation of 

special access services in price-cap 

territories, a rate-of-return carrier, which 

is not subject to our pricing flexibility 

rules, shall not be considered a 

‘‘provider’’ to the extent it provides 


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2588 Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 

special access within its rate-of-return 

service area. Likewise, we will not 

require data from any provider with 

regard to its operations in any 

geographic area in which a rate-ofreturn carrier is the incumbent. 

Moreover, we will not require a 

purchaser to produce data based on 

purchases it makes in those areas in 

which a rate-of-return carrier is the 

incumbent. If, however, a provider or 

purchaser prefers to provide data for all 

areas without distinguishing between 

areas served by price cap LECs and rateof-return LECs, it may do so. 

130. Small business concerns were 

considered when determining the 

nature of the data to be collected, and 

identified data, information, and 

document requirements were modified 

to reduce burdens on small businesses 

where possible. The Wireline 

Competition Bureau previously issued 

two voluntary data requests in this 

proceeding. These voluntary requests 

allowed each potential respondent to 

make its own determination concerning 

participation. The responses to the 

voluntary data requests provided the 

Commission the means and opportunity 

to assess which data elements are most 

important to its ability to assess the 

special access market, and to eliminate 

or revise those questions that otherwise 

yield less valuable information. The 

voluntary data requests also allowed the 

Commission to carefully assess the need 

to obtain data from all providers and 

purchasers of special access services 

and certain other services—including 

small businesses—to conduct a 

comprehensive analysis of the special 

access market. 

131. In order to conduct a 

comprehensive analysis of the special 

access market, the Commission will 

collect data from all providers and 

purchasers of special access services as 

well as some entities that provide best 

efforts business broadband Internet 

access services. The Commission notes 

concerns regarding the burden that this 

data collection will impose on small 

companies, and is mindful of the 

importance of seeking to reduce 

information collection burdens for small 

business concerns, and in particular 

those ‘‘with fewer than 25 employees.’’ 

Competition in the provision of special 

access, however, appears to occur at a 

very granular level—perhaps as low as 

the building/tower. Accordingly, the 

Commission finds it necessary to obtain 

data from special access providers and 

purchasers of all sizes. 

132. We structured the collection 

somewhat differently for best efforts and 

special access services to minimize the 

burden on submitters consistent with 

our data requirements and taking into 

consideration data that the Commission 

already has available to it. Because the 

record indicates that entities that 

provide best efforts business broadband 

Internet access services generally 

deliver those services throughout their 

footprint over the same network 

facilities they use to deliver mass 

market broadband Internet access, we 

need not collect this data at the same 

level of granularity as location and 

facilities data for special access. We also 

do not require entities with fewer than 

15,000 customers and fewer than 1,500 

business broadband customers to 

provide data regarding their best efforts 

business broadband Internet access 

services. Commenters assert that those 

entities incur the greatest burden when 

producing data for the State Broadband 

Initiative broadband mapping effort. 

133. Other modifications made by the 

Commission include: allowing a 

provider or purchaser to provide data 

for all areas without distinguishing 

between areas served by price cap LECs 

and rate-of-return LECs; applying 

sampling methods where possible; 

limiting the market structure, pricing 

and demand data collection to a twoyear period; and tailoring the 

timeframes for the terms and conditions, 

competition and pricing questions to the 

specific issue addressed. In addition, 

the Commission chose to limit the 

production of documents showing the 

internal analyses undertaken by 

providers in 2010 or thereafter to 

evaluate, inter alia, competitive market 

shares, changes in competition, changes 

in the costs of supplying services, 

whether to respond to RFPs, and 

identified rate increases and decreases 

to circumstances where the Wireline 

Competition Bureau determines the 

initial data collection was incomplete or 

insufficient for analysis. 

134. We note that this Report and 

Order does not change special access 

pricing regulation. We therefore do not 

consider the potential alternatives to 

special access pricing regulation that 

SBA asserted might minimize the 

impact on small competitive carriers. 

6. Report to Congress 

The Commission will send a copy of 

the Report and Order, including this 

FRFA, in a report to be sent to Congress 

and the Government Accountability 

Office pursuant to the Small Business 

Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 

1996. In addition, the Commission will 

send a copy of the Order, including the 

FRFA, to the Chief Counsel for 

Advocacy of the Small Business 

Administration. A copy of the Report 

and Order and FRFA (or summaries 

thereof) will also be published in the 

Federal Register. 

D. Ex Parte Presentations 

135. The proceeding shall be treated 

as a ‘‘permit-but-disclose’’ proceeding in 

accordance with the Commission’s ex 

parte rules. Persons making ex parte 

presentations must file a copy of any 

written presentation or a memorandum 

summarizing any oral presentation 

within two business days after the 

presentation (unless a different deadline 

applicable to the Sunshine period 

applies). Persons making oral ex parte 

presentations are reminded that 

memoranda summarizing the 

presentation must (1) list all persons 

attending or otherwise participating in 

the meeting at which the ex parte 

presentation was made, and (2) 

summarize all data presented and 

arguments made during the 

presentation. If the presentation 

consisted in whole or in part of the 

presentation of data or arguments 

already reflected in the presenter’s 

written comments, memoranda or other 

filings in the proceeding, the presenter 

may provide citations to such data or 

arguments in his or her prior comments, 

memoranda, or other filings (specifying 

the relevant page and/or paragraph 

numbers where such data or arguments 

can be found) in lieu of summarizing 

them in the memorandum. Documents 

shown or given to Commission staff 

during ex parte meetings are deemed to 

be written ex parte presentations and 

must be filed consistent with 

§ 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by 

§ 1.49(f) or for which the Commission 

has made available a method of 

electronic filing, written ex parte 

presentations and memoranda 

summarizing oral ex parte 

presentations, and all attachments 

thereto, must be filed through the 

electronic comment filing system 

available for that proceeding, and must 

be filed in their native format (e.g., .doc, 

.xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants 

in this proceeding should familiarize 

themselves with the Commission’s ex 

parte rules. 

V. Mandatory Data Collection 

I. Definitions 

The following definitions apply for 

purposes of this collection only. They 

are not intended to set or modify 

precedent outside the context of this 

collection. 

Affiliated Company means a 

company, partnership, corporation, 

limited liability company, or other 

business entity that is affiliated with a 

Provider. An entity and a Provider are 


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affiliated if one of them, or an entity that 

controls one of them, directly or 

indirectly holds a greater than 25 

percent ownership interest in, or 

controls, the other one. 

Best Efforts Business Broadband 

Internet Access Service means a best 

efforts Internet access data service with 

a capacity equal to or greater than a DS1 

connection that is marketed to 

enterprise customers (including small, 

medium, and large businesses). For 

purposes of this data collection, Best 

Efforts Business Broadband Internet 

Access Services do not include mobile 

wireless services, as that term is used in 

the 15th Annual Mobile Wireless 

Competition Report. 

Circuit-Based Dedicated Service 

(CBDS) means a Dedicated Service that 

is circuit-based. Examples of CBDS 

include DS1 and DS3 services and 

Synchronous Optical Networking 

(SONET)/Optical Carrier N (OCN) 

services, including point-to-point and 

ring services. 

Collocation is an offering by an ILEC 

whereby a requesting Competitive 

Provider’s transmission equipment is 

located, for a tariffed charge, at the 

ILEC’s central office. It refers to the term 

as used pursuant to 47 CFR 69.701 et 

seq. of the Commission’s rules for 

purposes of applying for a grant of 

Phase I or Phase II Pricing Flexibility 

from the Commission. The definition of 

Collocation excludes Competitive 

Providers that collocate in carrier hotels. 

Competitive Provider means a 

competitive local exchange carrier 

(CLEC), interexchange carrier, cable 

operator, wireless provider or any other 

entity that is subject to the 

Commission’s jurisdiction under the 

Communications Act of 1934, as 

amended, and either provides a 

Dedicated Service or provides a 

Connection over which a Dedicated 

Service could be provided. A 

Competitive Provider does not include 

an ILEC operating within its incumbent 

service territory. 

Connection means a wired ‘‘line’’ or 

wireless ‘‘channel’’ that provides a 

dedicated communication path between 

an End User’s Location and the first 

Node on a Provider’s network. Multiple 

dedicated communication paths serving 

one or more End Users at the same 

Location should be counted as a single 

Connection. A Connection may be a 

UNE, including an Unbundled Copper 

Loop. A Connection must have the 

capability of being used to provide one 

or more Dedicated Services; however, a 

Connection can be used to provide other 

services as well. For example, a 

dedicated communication path that is 

currently being used to provide a mass 

market broadband service but has the 

capability to provide a Dedicated 

Service is considered a Connection for 

the purpose of this data collection. 

Contract-Based Tariff means a Tariff, 

other than a Tariff Plan, that is based on 

a service contract entered into between 

a customer and an ILEC which has 

obtained permission to offer contractbased tariff services pursuant to 47 CFR 

69.701 et seq. of the Commission’s 

pricing flexibility rules or a comparable 

tariffed intrastate service contract 

between a customer and an ILEC. 

Dedicated Service transports data 

between two or more designated points, 

e.g., between an End User’s premises 

and a point-of-presence, between the 

central office of a local exchange carrier 

(LEC) and a point-of-presence, or 

between two End User premises, at a 

rate of at least 1.5 megabytes per second 

(Mbps) with prescribed performance 

requirements that include bandwidth-, 

latency-, or error-rate guarantees or 

other parameters that define delivery 

under a Tariff or in a service-level 

agreement. Dedicated Service includes, 

but is not limited to, CBDS and PBDS. 

For the purpose of this data collection, 

Dedicated Service does not include 

‘‘best effort’’ services, e.g., mass market 

broadband services such as DSL and 

cable modem broadband access. 

Disconnection means the process by 

which a Provider, per a customer 

request, terminates billing on one or 

more of a customer’s Dedicated Service 

circuits. 

DS1 and DS3, except where specified, 

refer to DS1s and DS3s that are not 

UNEs. DS1s and DS3s are Dedicated 

Services. 

End User means a business, 

institutional, or government entity that 

purchases Dedicated Service for its own 

purposes and does not resell such 

service. A mobile wireless service 

provider is considered an End User 

when it purchases Dedicated Service to 

make connections within its own 

network, e.g., backhaul to a cell site. 

End User Channel Termination 

means, as defined in 47 CFR 

69.703(a)(2), a dedicated channel 

connecting a LEC end office and a 

customer premises, offered for purposes 

of carrying special access traffic. 

Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier 

(ILEC) means, for the purpose of this 

data collection, a LEC that provides a 

Dedicated Service in study areas where 

it is subject to price cap regulation 

under sections 61.41–61.49 of the 

Commission’s rules, 47 CFR 64.41– 

61.49. 

Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) means 

an indefeasible long-term leasehold 

interest that gives the grantee the right 

to exclusively use specified strands of 

fiber or allocated bandwidth to provide 

a service as determined by the grantee. 

An IRU confers on the grantee 

substantially all of the risks and rewards 

of ownership for the estimated 

economic life of the asset. IRUs 

typically include the following 

elements: (i) Payment of a substantial 

fee up front to enter into the IRU 

contract; (ii) a minimum total duration 

of 10 years; (iii) conveyance of tax 

obligations commensurate with the risks 

and rewards of ownership to the grantee 

(e.g. as opposed to the lesser tax 

burdens associated with other forms of 

leases); (iv) terms for payment to the 

grantor for ancillary services, such as 

maintenance fees; (v) all additional 

rights and interests necessary to enable 

the IRU to be used by the grantee in the 

manner agreed to; and (vi) no 

unreasonable limit on the right of the 

grantee to use the asset as it wishes (e.g., 

the grantee shall be permitted to splice 

into the IRU fiber, though such splice 

points must be mutually agreed upon by 

grantor and the grantee of the IRU). 

Location means a building, other 

man-made structure, a cell site on a 

building, a free-standing cell site, or a 

cell site on some other man-made 

structure where the End User is 

connected. A Node is not a Location. 

For the purposes of this data collection, 

cell sites are to be treated as Locations 

and not as Nodes. 

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is 

a geographic area as defined by 47 CFR 

22.909(a), 69.703(b). 

Node is an aggregation point, a branch 

point, or a point of interconnection on 

a Provider’s network, including a point 

of interconnection to other Provider 

networks. Examples include LEC central 

offices, remote terminal locations, splice 

points (including, for example, at 

manholes), controlled environmental 

vaults, cable system headends, cable 

modem termination system (CMTS) 

locations, and facility hubs. 

Non-MSA is the portion of an ILEC’s 

study area that falls outside the 

boundaries of an MSA. 

Non-Rate Benefit means a benefit to 

the customer other than a discount on 

the One Month Term Only Rate, e.g., a 

credit towards penalties or nonrecurring charges or the ability to move 

circuits without incurring a penalty. 

One Month Term Only Rate means, 

for purposes of this data collection, the 

non-discounted monthly recurring 

tariffed rate for DS1, DS3 and/or PBDS 

services. 

Packet-Based Dedicated Service 

(PBDS) means a Dedicated Service that 

is packet-based. Examples of PBDS 

include Multi-Protocol Label Switched 


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(MPLS) services; permanent virtual 

circuits, virtual private lines and similar 

services provided using ATM, Frame 

Relay and other packet technologies; 

(Gigabit) Ethernet Services and Metro 

Ethernet Virtual Connections; and 

Virtual Private Networks (VPN). 

Phase I Pricing Flexibility means 

regulatory relief for the pricing of End 

User Channel Terminations pursuant to 

47 CFR 69.711(b), 69.727(a) of the 

Commission’s rules. 

Phase II Pricing Flexibility means 

regulatory relief for the pricing of End 

User Channel Terminations pursuant to 

47 CFR 69.711(c), 69.727(b) of the 

Commission’s rules. 

Prior Purchase-Based Commitment 

means a type of Volume Commitment 

where the commitment is based on 

either: 

(i) a certain percentage or number of 

the customer’s purchased in-service 

circuits or lines as measured at the time 

of making the Volume Commitment or 

measured during a period of time prior 

to making the Volume Commitment, 

e.g., based on the customer’s billing 

records for the current month or prior 

month(s); or 

(ii) a certain percentage of Revenues 

generated by the customer’s purchases 

as measured at the time of making the 

Volume Commitment or during a period 

of time prior to making the Volume 

Commitment. 

Providers collectively refers to both 

ILECs and Competitive Providers. 

Purchasers means Competitive 

Providers and End Users that are subject 

to the Commission’s jurisdiction under 

the Communications Act of 1934, as 

amended, and purchase Dedicated 

Service. 

Revenues means intrastate and 

interstate billed amounts without any 

allowance for uncollectibles, 

commissions or settlements. Revenues 

do not include billed amounts that are 

subsequently discounted by the 

Provider, e.g., customer rebates. 

Tariff means an intrastate or interstate 

schedule of rates and regulations filed 

by common carriers. 

Tariff Plan means a Tariff, other than 

a Contract-Based Tariff, that provides a 

customer with either a discount from 

any One Month Term Only Rate for the 

purchase of DS1 and/or DS3 services or 

a Non-Rate Benefit that could be applied 

to these services. 

Term Commitment means a 

commitment to purchase a Dedicated 

Service for a period of time, greater than 

a month, in exchange for a circuitspecific discount and/or a Non-Rate 

Benefit. 

Transport Service means dedicated 

transport and includes the services set 

forth in 47 CFR 69.709(a)(1)–(3). 

Transport Provider means a Provider 

that supplies Transport Service. 

Unbundled Copper Loop means a 

copper wire local loop provided by 

ILECs to requesting telecommunications 

carriers on a non-discriminatory basis 

pursuant to 47 CFR 51.319(a)(1) that can 

be used by a Competitive Provider to 

provide a Dedicated Service, e.g., 

Ethernet over Copper. An Unbundled 

Copper Loop is typically a 2- or 4-wire 

loop that the ILEC has conditioned to 

remove intervening equipment such as 

bridge taps, load coils, repeaters, low 

pass filters, range extenders, etc. 

between the End User’s Location and 

the serving wire center to allow for the 

provision of advanced digital services 

by a Competitive Provider. These loops 

are commonly referred to as dry copper, 

bare copper, or xDSL-compatible loops. 

An Unbundled Copper Loop is a type of 

UNE. 

Unbundled Network Element (UNE) 

means a local loop provided by an ILEC 

to a requesting telecommunications 

carrier on a non-discriminatory basis 

pursuant to 47 CFR 51.319(a). 

Upgrade means that a customer 

transitions one or more circuits to a 

higher capacity circuit. 

Volume Commitment means a 

commitment to purchase a specified 

volume, e.g., a certain number of 

circuits or Revenues, to receive a 

discount on Dedicated Services and/or a 

Non-Rate Benefit. 

II. Mandatory Data Collection Questions 

A. Competitive Providers must 

respond to the following questions: 

1. Are you an Affiliated Company? 

b Yes 

b No 

a. If so, identify the Provider(s) with 

whom you have an affiliation (name/ 

FRN). 

2. Do you (i) own a Connection; (ii) 

lease a Connection from another entity 

under an IRU agreement; or (iii) obtain 

a Connection as a UNE from an ILEC to 

provide a Dedicated Service? 

b Yes 

b No 

a. If yes, are any of these Connections 

to a Location within an area subject to 

price cap regulation or within an area 

where the Commission has granted 

Phase I or Phase II Pricing Flexibility? 

b Yes 

b No 

If you answered ‘‘no’’ to question 

II.A.2 or II.A.2.a, then you are not 

required to respond to the remaining 

questions in II.A or the questions in II.D. 

Facilities Information 

3. Provide the number of Locations to 

which you provided a Connection as of 

December 31, 2010 and as of December 

31, 2012 where your company: 

a. Owns the Connection; 

b. Leases the Connection from another 

entity under an IRU agreement; or 

c. Obtains the Connection as a UNE 

from an ILEC to provide a Dedicated 

Service: 

i. In total; 

ii. In the form of DS1s; 

iii. As a DS3; or 

iv. As an Unbundled Copper Loop. 

4. Provide the information requested 

below for each Location as of December 

31, 2010 and as of December 31, 2012 

to which your company provided a 

Connection that you: (i) own; (ii) lease 

from another entity under an IRU 

agreement; or (iii) obtained as a UNE 

from an ILEC to provide a Dedicated 

Service. 

a. A unique ID for the Location; 

b. The actual situs address for the 

Location (i.e., land where the building 

or cell site is located); 

c. The geocode for the Location (i.e., 

latitude and longitude); 

d. The Location type (e.g., building, 

other man-made structure, cell site in or 

on a building, free-standing cell site, or 

a cell site on some other man-made 

structure like a water tower, billboard, 

etc.); 

e. Whether the Connection provided 

to the location uses facilities leased 

from another entity under an IRU or 

obtained as a DS1/DS3 UNE or 

Unbundled Copper Loop, and in each 

case, the name of the lessor of the 

majority of the fiber strands and/or 

copper loop; 

f. Whether any of the Connections to 

the location are provided using fiber; 

g. The total sold bandwidth of all 

Connections provided by you to the 

Location in Mbps; 

h. The total bandwidth to the 

Location sold directly by you to an End 

User; 

i. The total sold fixed wireless 

bandwidth provided by you to the 

Location; and 

j. The total bandwidth sold by you to 

any cell sites at the Location. 

5. Provide a map of the routes that 

constitute your network that are 

followed by fiber that you (a) own or (b) 

lease pursuant to an IRU agreement, 

excluding routes followed by fiber that 

you own or lease pursuant to an IRU 

agreement connecting your network to 

End User Locations. The map must 

include the locations of all Nodes on 

your network used to interconnect with 

third party networks, and the year that 


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each Node went live. Also, provide a 

separate map of the routes followed by 

fiber that you (a) own or (b) lease 

pursuant to an IRU agreement that 

connect your network to End User 

Locations. 

6. We will provide you with a 

selected list of the Locations you 

reported in response to question II.A.4. 

For each identified Location, state the 

month and year that you first provided 

a Connection to that Location, whether 

you originally supplied the Location 

over a UNE, and if so, when (if at all) 

you switched to using a Connection that 

you own or lease as an IRU. If the 

Location was first served by your 

Connection on or before January 2008, 

and the date the Location was first 

served is unknown, then enter 00/0000. 

7. For each ILEC wire center where 

your company is collocated, provide the 

actual situs address, the geocode, and 

the CLLI code. 

8. Explain your business rule(s) used 

to determine whether to build a 

Connection to a particular Location. 

Provide underlying assumptions. 

a. List those geographic areas in 

which you have built the most 

Connections to End Users and explain 

why, in your view, your business rule 

has been most successful in those areas. 

b. Explain how, if at all, business 

density is incorporated into your 

business rule, and if so, how you 

measure business density. 

9. Provide the following information: 

a. The current situs address of your 

U.S. headquarters (i.e., the address of 

the land where the headquarters is 

located); 

b. The year that this site became your 

headquarters; 

c. Year established and situs address 

for any prior U.S. headquarters’ location 

for your company, going as far back as 

1995, if different from the headquarters’ 

location listed in response to question 

II.A.9.a; 

d. The name of any Affiliated 

Company that owned, or leased under 

an IRU agreement, Connections to five 

or more Locations in any MSA at the 

time you became affiliated with the 

Affiliated Company, going as far back as 

1995. 

e. For each Affiliated Company listed 

in response to question II.A.9.d, 

provide: 

i. The situs address for each Affiliated 

Company’s U.S. headquarters at the 

time of affiliation; 

ii. The year that the Affiliated 

Company established the situs address 

listed in response to question II.A.9.e.i 

for its U.S. headquarters; and 

iii. The year established and situs 

address for any prior U.S. headquarters’ 

location designated by the Affiliated 

Company, going as far back as 1995, if 

different from the headquarters’ location 

listed in response to question II.A.9.e.i. 

10. Provide data, maps, information, 

marketing materials, and/or documents 

identifying those geographic areas 

where you, or an Affiliated Company, 

advertised or marketed Dedicated 

Service over existing facilities, via 

leased facilities, or by building out new 

facilities as of December 31, 2010 and as 

of December 31, 2012, or planned to 

advertise or market such services within 

twenty-four months of those dates. 

11. Identify the five most recent 

Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for which 

you were selected as the winning bidder 

to provide each of the following: (a) 

Dedicated Services; (b) Best Efforts 

Business Broadband Internet Access 

Services; and, to the extent different 

from (a) or (b), (c) some other form of 

high-capacity data services to business 

customers. In addition, identify the five 

largest RFPs (by number of connections) 

for which you submitted an 

unsuccessful competitive bid between 

2010 and 2012 for each of (a) Dedicated 

Services; (b) Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services; 

and, to the extent different from (a) or 

(b), (c) some other form of high-capacity 

data services to business customers. For 

each RFP identified, provide a 

description of the RFP, the area covered, 

the price offered, and other 

competitively relevant information. 

Lastly, identify the business rules you 

rely upon to determine whether to 

submit a bid in response to an RFP. 

Billing Information 

12. For all Dedicated Services 

provided using transmission paths that 

you (i) own; (ii) lease from another 

entity under an IRU agreement; or (iii) 

obtain as a UNE from an ILEC to provide 

a Dedicated Service, submit the 

following information by rate element 

by circuit billed for each month from 

January 1 to December 31 for the years 

2010 and 2012. 

a. The closing date of the monthly 

billing cycle in dd/mm/yyyy format; 

b. The six-digit 499–A Filer ID of the 

customer, where applicable, or other 

unique ID if customer does not have a 

499–A Filer ID; 

c. The Location ID from question 

II.A.4.a that can be used to link the 

circuit rate elements to the terminating 

Location of the circuit (where 

applicable); 

d. The circuit ID common to all 

elements purchased in common for a 

particular circuit; 

e. The type of circuit (PBDS, or DS1 

or DS3, etc.) and its bandwidth; 

f. A unique billing code for the rate 

element (see question II.A.14); 

g. The number of units billed for this 

rate element (note that the bandwidth of 

the circuit must not be entered here); 

h. The dollar amount of non-recurring 

charges billed for the first unit of this 

rate element; 

i. The dollar amount of non-recurring 

charges billed for additional units of 

this rate element (if different from the 

amount billed for the initial unit); 

j. The monthly recurring dollar charge 

for the first unit of the rate element 

billed; 

k. The monthly recurring dollar 

charge for additional units (if different 

from the amount billed for the initial 

unit); 

l. The total monthly dollar amount 

billed for the rate element billed in the 

month; 

m. The Term Commitment associated 

with this circuit in months; 

n. Indicate whether this rate element 

is associated with a circuit that 

contributes to a Volume Commitment; 

o. Indicate whether the circuit 

element is owned by you or leased by 

you as an IRU but not as a UNE; and 

p. The adjustment ID (or multiple 

adjustment IDs) linking this rate 

element to the unique out-of-cycle 

billing adjustments in question II.A.13.a 

(below) if applicable. 

13. For each adjustment, rebate, or 

true-up for billed Dedicated Services, 

provide the information requested 

below. 

a. A unique ID number for the billing 

adjustment, rebate, or true-up (see 

question II.A.12.p above); 

b. The beginning date of the time 

period covered by the adjustment or 

true-up; 

c. The ending date of the time period 

covered by the adjustment or true-up; 

d. The scope of the billing adjustment, 

i.e., whether the adjustment applies to a 

single rate element on a single circuit, 

more than one rate element on a single 

circuit, more than one rate element 

across multiple circuits, or an overall 

adjustment that applies to every rate 

element on every circuit purchased by 

the customer; 

e. The dollar amount of the 

adjustment or true-up; and 

f. A brief description of the billing 

adjustment, rebate or true-up, e.g., term 

discount, revenue target rebate, etc. 

14. For each unique billing code, 

please provide the following 

information below. 

a. The billing code for the rate 

element; 

b. Select the phrase that best describes 

the rate element from the list. Names of 

some common rate elements are shown 


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on the generalized circuit diagram 

below: 

i. Channel mileage facility, channel 

mileage, interoffice channel mileage, 

special transport (a transmission path 

between two serving wire centers 

associated with customer designated 

locations; a serving wire center and an 

international or service area boundary 

point; a serving wire center and a hub, 

or similar type of connection); 

ii. Channel mileage termination, 

special transport termination (the 

termination of channel mileage facility 

or similar transmission path); 

iii. Channel termination, local 

distribution channel, special access line, 

customer port connection (Ethernet) (a 

transmission path between a customer 

designated location and the associated 

wire center); 

iv. Clear channel capability (not 

shown) (an arrangement which allows a 

customer to transport, for example, 

1.536 Mbps of information on a 1.544 

Mbps line rate with no constraint on the 

quantity or sequence of one and zero 

bits); 

v. Cross-connection (not shown) 

(semi-permanent switching between 

facilities, sometimes combined with 

multiplexing/demultiplexing); 

vi. Multiplexing (not shown) 

(channelizing a facility into individual 

services requiring a Lower capacity or 

bandwidth); and 

vii. Class of service and/or committed 

information rate (not shown) (for 

Ethernet, the performance 

characteristics of the network and 

bandwidth available for a customer port 

connection). 

c. If none of the possible entries 

describes the rate element, enter a short 

description. 

Revenues, Terms and Conditions 

15. What were your Revenues from 

the sale of CBDS in 2010 and 2012? For 

each year, report Revenues in total, 

separately by DS1, DS3, and other CBDS 

sales, and separately by customer 

category, i.e., sales to Providers and End 

Users. 

16. What were your Revenues from 

the sale of PBDS in 2010 and 2012? For 

each year, report Revenues in total, 

separately by customer category, i.e., 

sales to Providers and End Users, and 

separately by bandwidth for the 

following categories: 

a. less than or equal to 1.5 Mbps; 

b. greater than 1.5, but less than or 

equal to 50 Mbps; 

c. greater than 50, but less than or 

equal to 100 Mbps; 

d. greater than 100, but less than or 

equal to 1 Gbps; and 

e. greater than 1 Gbps. 

17. What percentage of your Revenues 

from the sale of DS1, DS3, and PBDS 

services in 2012 were generated from an 

agreement or Tariff that contains a Prior 

Purchase-Based Commitment? 

18. If you offer Dedicated Services 

pursuant to an agreement or Tariff that 

contains either a Prior Purchase-Based 

Commitment or a Non-Rate Benefit, 

then explain how, if at all, those sales 

are distinguishable from similarly 

structured ILEC sales of DS1s, DS3s, 

and/or PBDS. 

19. Provide the business justification 

for the Term or Volume Commitments 

associated with any Tariff or agreement 

you offer for the sale of Dedicated 

Services. 

B. ILECs must respond to the 

following questions: 

1. Are you an Affiliated Company? 

b Yes 

b No 

a. If so, identify the Provider(s) with 

whom you have an affiliation (name/ 

FRN). 

Facilities Information 

2. Provide the number of Locations to 

which you provided a Connection in 

your company study areas as of 

December 31, 2010 and as of December 

31, 2012 where your company: 

a. owns the Connection; 

b. leases the Connection from another 

entity under an IRU agreement; or 

c. sells the Connection as a UNE: 

i. in total; 

ii. in the form of DS1s; 

iii. as a DS3; or 

iv. as an Unbundled Copper Loop. 

3. Provide the information requested 

below for each Location to which your 

company provided, as of December 31, 

2010 and as of December 31, 2012, a 

Connection that you (i) own or (ii) you 

lease from another entity under an IRU 

agreement: 

a. A unique ID for the Location; 

b. The actual situs address for the 

Location (i.e., land where the building 

or cell site is located); 

c. The geocode for the Location (i.e., 

latitude and longitude); 

d. The Location type (e.g., building, 

other man-made structure, cell site in or 

on a building, free-standing cell site, or 

a cell site on some other man-made 

structure like a water tower, billboard, 

etc.); 

e. Whether any of the Connections to 

the Location are provided using fiber; 

f. The total sold bandwidth of all 

Connections provided by you to the 

Location in Mbps (exclude connections 

sold without a specified bandwidth, 

e.g., Unbundled Copper Loops); 

g. The total number of Unbundled 

Copper Loops sold by you to the 

Location; 

h. The total bandwidth to the 

Location sold by you as UNEs in the 

form of DS1s and/or DS3s; 

i. The total bandwidth to the Location 

sold directly by you to an End User; 

j. The total sold fixed wireless 

bandwidth provided by you to the 

Location; and 

k. The total bandwidth sold by you to 

any cell sites at the Location. 

Billing Information 

4. For all Dedicated Services provided 

using transmission paths that you (i) 

own or (ii) lease from another entity 

under an IRU agreement and for 

Unbundled Copper Loops that you own 

and provision, submit the following 

information by rate element by circuit 


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billed for each month from January 1 to 

December 31 for the years 2010 and 

2012. 

a. The closing date of the monthly 

billing cycle in dd/mm/yyyy format; 

b. The six-digit 499A Filer ID of the 

customer, where applicable, or other 

unique ID if customer does not have a 

499A Filer ID; 

c. The Location ID from question 

II.B.3.a that can be used to link the 

circuit rate elements to the terminating 

Location of the circuit (where 

applicable); 

d. The circuit ID common to all 

elements purchased in common for a 

particular circuit; 

e. The type of circuit, (DS1 sold as a 

UNE, DS3 sold as a UNE, Unbundled 

Copper Loop, PBDS, non-UNE DS1s or 

DS3s, etc.) and the bandwidth of the 

circuit; 

f. The serving wire center/mileage 

rating point Common Language 

Location Identification (CLLI) of one 

end of the circuit (MRP1); 

g. The serving wire center/mileage 

rating point CLLI of the other end of the 

circuit (MRP2); 

h. The latitude of MRP1 to 5 decimal 

places; 

i. The longitude of MRP1 to 5 decimal 

places; 

j. The latitude of MRP2 to 5 decimal 

places; 

k. The longitude of MRP2 to 5 

decimal places; 

l. End of the circuit (1-MRP1 or 2- 

MRP2) associated with this rate 

element; 

m. The billing code for the rate 

element (see question II.B.6); 

n. The density pricing zone for the 

rate element; 

o. The number of units billed for this 

rate element (note that the bandwidth of 

the circuit must not be entered here); 

p. The dollar amount of non-recurring 

charges billed for the first unit of this 

rate element; 

q. The dollar amount of non-recurring 

charges billed for additional units of 

this rate element (if different from the 

amount billed for the initial unit); 

r. The monthly recurring dollar charge 

for the first unit of the rate element 

billed; 

s. The monthly recurring dollar 

charge for additional units (if different 

from the amount billed for the initial 

unit); 

t. The total monthly dollar amount 

billed for the rate element; 

u. The Term Commitment associated 

with this circuit in months; 

v. Indicate whether this rate element 

is associated with a circuit that 

contributes to a Volume Commitment; 

w. Indicate whether this rate element 

is associated with a circuit that 

contributes to a revenue commitment in 

a Tariff Plan; 

x. Indicate whether this rate element 

was purchased pursuant to a ContractBased Tariff; 

y. Indicate whether the circuit 

element is owned by you or leased by 

you as an IRU; 

z. The adjustment ID (or multiple 

adjustment IDs) linking this rate 

element to the unique out-of-cycle 

billing adjustments in question II.B.5.a 

(below) if applicable; and 

aa. If the rate element is sold under a 

Tariff, list the Tariff name. 

5. For each adjustment, rebate, or 

true-up for billed Dedicated Services, 

provide the information requested 

below. 

a. A unique ID for the billing 

adjustment or true-up (see question 

II.B.4.z above); 

b. A unique ID number for the 

contract or Tariff from which the 

adjustment originates; 

c. The beginning date of the time 

period covered by the adjustment or 

true-up; 

d. The ending date of the time period 

covered by the adjustment or true-up; 

e. The scope of the billing adjustment, 

i.e., whether the adjustment applies to a 

single rate element on a single circuit, 

more than one rate element on a single 

circuit, more than one rate element 

across multiple circuits, or an overall 

adjustment that applies to every rate 

element on every circuit purchased by 

the customer; 

f. The dollar amount of the 

adjustment or true-up; 

g. Whether the adjustment is 

associated with a Term Commitment, 

and if so, the length of the term 

specified in the contract necessary to 

achieve the rebate; 

h. Whether the adjustment is 

associated with a Volume Commitment, 

and if so, the number of circuits and/or 

dollar amount specified in the contract 

necessary to achieve the rebate; and 

i. If the adjustment is for some other 

reason, a brief description of the reason 

for the adjustment. 

6. For each unique billing code, 

please provide the following 

information below. 

a. The billing code for the rate 

element; 

b. The phrase that best describes the 

rate element from the list. Names of 

some common rate elements are shown 

on the generalized circuit diagram 

below: 

i. Channel mileage facility, channel 

mileage, interoffice channel mileage, 

special transport (a transmission path 

between two serving wire centers 

associated with customer designated 

locations; a serving wire center and an 

international or service area boundary 

point; a serving wire center and a hub, 

or similar type of connection); 

ii. Channel mileage termination, 

special transport termination (the 

termination of channel mileage facility 

or similar transmission path); 

iii. Channel termination, local 

distribution channel, special access line, 

customer port connection (Ethernet) (a 

transmission path between a customer 

designated location and the associated 

wire center); 

iv. Clear channel capability (not 

shown) (an arrangement which allows a 

customer to transport, for example, 

1.536 Mbps of information on a 1.544 


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Mbps line rate with no constraint on the 

quantity or sequence of one and zero 

bits); 

v. Cross-connection (not shown) 

(semi-permanent switching between 

facilities, sometimes combined with 

multiplexing/demultiplexing); 

vi. Multiplexing (not shown) 

(channelizing a facility into individual 

services requiring a Lower capacity or 

bandwidth); and 

vii. Class of service and/or committed 

information rate (not shown) (for 

Ethernet, the performance 

characteristics of the network and 

bandwidth available for a customer port 

connection). 

c. If none of the possible entries 

describes the rate element, enter a short 

description. 

7. List the CLLI code for each one of 

your wire centers that was subject to 

price cap regulation as of December 31, 

2010 and as of December 31, 2012, i.e., 

those wire centers in your incumbent 

territory where the Commission had not 

granted you pricing flexibility. For those 

MSAs and Non-MSAs where the 

Commission granted you Phase I or 

Phase II Pricing Flexibility as of 

December 31, 2010 and as of December 

31, 2012, list the CLLI codes for the wire 

centers associated with each MSA and 

Non-MSA for each year, the name of the 

relevant MSA and Non-MSA for each 

year, and the level of pricing flexibility 

granted for the MSA and Non-MSA, i.e., 

Phase I and/or Phase II Pricing 

Flexibility. 

Revenues, Terms and Conditions 

Information 

8. What were your Revenues from the 

sale of CBDS services in 2010 and 2012? 

For each year, report Revenues in total, 

separately by DS1, DS3, and other CBDS 

sales, and separately by customer 

category, i.e., sales to Competitive 

Providers and End Users. 

9. What were your Revenues from the 

sale of PBDS services in 2010 and 2012? 

For each year, report Revenues in total, 

separately by customer category, i.e., 

sales to Competitive Providers and End 

Users, and separately by bandwidth for 

the following categories: 

a. Less than or equal to 1.5 Mbps; 

b. Greater than 1.5, but less than or 

equal to 50 Mbps; 

c. Greater than 50, but less than or 

equal to 100 Mbps; 

d. Greater than 100, but less than or 

equal to 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps); 

and 

e. Greater than 1 Gbps. 

10. What were your Revenues from 

the One Month Term Only Rate charged 

for DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS services in 

2010 and 2012? For each year, report 

Revenues in total, separately by DS1, 

DS3, and PBDS sales as applicable, and 

separately by customer category, i.e., 

sales to Competitive Providers and End 

Users. 

11. How many customers were 

purchasing DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS 

services pursuant to your One Month 

Term Only Rates as of December 31, 

2012? Report customer numbers in total, 

separately for DS1, DS3, and PBDS 

services as applicable, and separately by 

customer category, i.e., the number of 

DS1, DS3, and PBDS service customers 

that were Competitive Providers and 

End Users. 

12. Separately list all available Tariff 

Plans and Contract-Based Tariffs that 

can be applied to the purchase of DS1, 

DS3 and/or PBDS services and provide 

the information requested below for 

each plan. 

a. This plan is a: 

b Tariff Plan 

b Contract-Based Tariff (select one) 

b. Plan name: 

c. Tariff and Section Number(s): 

d. This plan contains: 

b Term Commitment(s) 

b Volume Commitment(s) 

b Non-Rate Benefit option(s) (select 

all that apply) 

e. If the plan contains options for 

Non-Rate Benefits, explain of the 

available Non-Rate Benefits. 

f. This plan can be applied to the 

purchase of: 

b DS1 services 

b DS3 services 

b PBDS 

b Other (select all that apply) 

g. In what geographic areas is this 

plan available, e.g., nationwide, a 

particular region of the country, certain 

states, certain MSAs, a particular study 

area? 

h. To receive a discount or Non-Rate 

Benefit under this plan, must the 

customer make a Prior Purchase-Based 

Commitment? 

b Yes 

b No 

i. Do purchases of DS1 or DS3 

services in areas outside of your price 

cap study area(s) (e.g., purchases from 

an Affiliated Company that is a CLEC) 

count towards meeting any Volume 

Commitment to receive a discount or 

Non-Rate Benefit under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment) 

j. Do DS1 or DS3 purchases in areas 

where you are subject to price cap 

regulation and where pricing flexibility 

has not been granted count towards 

meeting any Volume Commitment to 

receive a discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment) 

k. Do non-tariffed PBDS purchases by 

the customer count towards meeting any 

Volume Commitment to receive a 

discount or Non-Rate Benefit under this 

plan? 

b Yes 

b

No b N/A (no Volume Commitment) 

l. Do purchases by the customer for 

services other than DS1s, DS3s, and 

PBDS count towards meeting any 

Volume Commitment to receive a 

discount or Non-Rate Benefit under this 

plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment) 

m. Is the discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

available under this plan conditioned 

on the customer limiting its purchase of 

UNEs, e.g., customer must keep its 

purchase of UNEs below a certain 

percentage of the customer’s total 

spend? 

b Yes 

b No 

n. What were your Revenues from the 

provision of DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS 

services under this plan in 2010 and in 

2012? For each year, report Revenues in 

total, separately by DS1, DS3, and PBDS 

sales as applicable, and separately by 

customer category, i.e., sales to 

Competitive Providers and End Users. 

o. What percentage of the Revenues 

reported above in response to question 

II.B.12.n for 2010 and 2012 were 

generated and also reported as Revenues 

under a separately identified Tariff Plan 

or Contract-Based Tariff? 

p. What percentage of the Revenues 

generated by this plan in 2012 resulted 

from a Term Commitment of five or 

more years? 

q. What is the business justification 

for any Term or Volume Commitments 

associated with this plan? 

r. How many customers were 

subscribed to this plan as of December 

31, 2012? Report customer numbers in 

total, separately for DS1, DS3, and PBDS 

services as applicable, and separately by 

customer category, i.e., the number of 

DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS customers that 

were Competitive Providers and End 

Users. 

s. Of those customers subscribed as of 

December 31, 2012, how many in 2012 

failed to meet any Volume Commitment 

or Term Commitment required to retain 

a discount or Non-Rate Benefit they 

originally agreed to when entering into 

this plan? 

13. Do you have any non-tariffed 

agreement with an End User or 

Competitive Provider that, directly or 


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indirectly, provides a discount or a NonRate Benefit on the purchase of tariffed 

DS1s, DS3s, and/or PBDS, restricts the 

ability of the End User or Competitive 

Provider to obtain UNEs, or negatively 

affects the ability of the End User or 

Competitive Provider to purchase 

Dedicated Services? 

b Yes 

b No 

a. If so, identify each agreement 

below, including the parties to the 

agreements, the effective date, and a 

summary of the relevant provisions. 

C. Entities that provide Best Efforts 

Business Broadband Internet Access 

Services must respond to the following 

questions: 

1. Do you have fewer than 15,000 

customers and fewer than 1,500 

business broadband customers? 

b Yes 

b No 

2. If you answered ‘‘no’’ to question 

II.C.1, then answer the following 

questions: 

a. Did you submit data in connection 

with the State Broadband Initiative (SBI) 

Grant Program for 2010? 

b Yes 

b No 

b. Did you submit data in connection 

with the SBI Grant Program for 2012? 

b Yes 

b No 

If you answered ‘‘no’’ to questions 

II.C.1.a and II.C.1.b, then you do not 

need to answer any further questions in 

this section. 

c. Did the data you submitted in 

connection with the SBI Grant Program 

in 2010 accurately and completely 

identify the areas in which you offered 

Best Efforts Business Broadband 

Internet Access Services and exclude 

those areas where you did not offer such 

services as of December 31, 2010? 

b Yes 

b No 

i. If yes, then provide the list of prices 

for those Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services that 

you were marketing in each census 

block submitted in connection with the 

SBI Grant Program as of December 31, 

2010. If there is a price variation within 

your service footprint, indicate which 

prices are associated with which census 

blocks. 

ii. If no, then provide a list of all the 

census blocks in which you were 

providing Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services as 

of December 31, 2010, and a list of the 

prices for those Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services that 

you were marketing in each census 

block as of December 31, 2010. If there 

is a price variation within your service 

footprint, indicate which prices are 

associated with which census blocks. 

d. Did the data you submitted in 

connection with the SBI Grant Program 

in 2012 accurately and completely 

identify the areas in which you offered 

Best Efforts Business Broadband 

Internet Access Services and exclude 

those areas where you did not offer such 

services as of December 31, 2012? 

b Yes 

b No 

i. If yes, then provide the list of prices 

for those Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services that 

you were marketing in each census 

block submitted in connection with the 

SBI Grant Program as of December 31, 

2012. If there is a price variation within 

your service footprint, indicate which 

prices are associated with which census 

blocks. 

ii. If no, then provide a list of all the 

census blocks in which you were 

providing Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services as 

of December 31, 2012, and a list of the 

prices for those Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services that 

you were marketing in each census 

block as of December 31, 2012. If there 

is a price variation within your service 

footprint, indicate which prices are 

associated with which census blocks. 

D. All Providers must respond to the 

following questions: 

1. Describe your company’s short term 

and long-range promotional and 

advertising strategies and objectives for 

winning new—or retaining current— 

customers for Dedicated Services. In 

your description, please describe the 

size (e.g., companies with 500 

employees or less, etc.), geographic 

scope (e.g., national, southeast, Chicago, 

etc.), and type of customers your 

company targets or plans to target 

through these strategies. 

2. Identify where your company’s 

policies are recorded on the following 

Dedicated Service-related processes: (a) 

Initiation of service; (b) service 

Upgrades; and (c) service 

Disconnections. For instance, identify 

where your company records recurring 

and non-recurring charges associated 

with the processes listed above. If 

recorded in a Tariff, provide the specific 

Tariff section(s). If these policies are 

recorded in documents other than 

Tariffs, list those documents and state 

whether they are publicly available. If 

they are publicly available, explain how 

to find them. For documents that are not 

publicly available, state whether they 

are conveyed to customers orally or in 

writing. 

3. Explain the procedures your 

company follows when a customer 

continues to purchase End-user Channel 

Terminations from your company but 

requests to change Transport Providers 

from your company to another Provider. 

In addition, answer the following 

questions regarding your process: 

a. Where are your procedures that 

govern these changes recorded? Provide 

the relevant Tariff number and 

section(s), if applicable, or identify 

which documents other than Tariffs 

contain these procedures. For 

documents that are not publicly 

available, state whether they are 

conveyed to customers orally or in 

writing. 

b. In 2012, what was the average 

length of time that it took your company 

to complete the process of connecting 

End User Channel Terminations to a 

new Transport Provider? 

c. Can purchasers negotiate timelines 

on a case-by-case basis? 

d. Do any of your company’s policies, 

whether contained in Tariffs or other 

documents, limit the maximum number 

of circuits that can be connected to a 

new Transport Provider per day, per 

week, or per month? If yes, what is that 

number and what is the business 

rationale for this requirement? 

e. How does connecting to a new 

Transport Provider impact the rate a 

customer pays for the End User Channel 

Terminations the customer continues to 

purchase from your company? 

f. While the change in Transport 

Providers is pending completion and 

before there is a Disconnection in the 

Transport Service provided by your 

company, are there instances where the 

customer must pay a higher rate for the 

Transport Service provided by your 

company? If so, then detail those 

circumstances and what rates would 

apply before and after the request is 

made. For example, if the customer’s 

contract expires or is terminated while 

a request to connect to a new Transport 

Provider is pending, would the 

customer pay a One Month Term Only 

Rate until there is a Disconnection in 

the Transport Service provided by your 

company? 

E. Purchasers that are mobile wireless 

service providers must respond to the 

following questions: 

1. How many cell sites do you have 

on your network? 

2. Provide the information requested 

below for each cell site on your network 

as of December 31, 2010 and as of 

December 31, 2012. 

a. A unique ID for the cell site; 

b. The actual situs address of the cell 

site (i.e., land where the cell site is 

located) if the cell site is located in or 

on a building; 


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c. The geocode for the cell site (i.e., 

latitude and longitude); 

d. The CLLI code of the incumbent 

LEC wire center that serves the cell site, 

where applicable; 

e. Whether the cell site is in or on a 

building, is a free-standing cell site, or 

is on some other type of man-made 

structure, e.g., a water tower, billboard, 

etc.; 

f. If the cell site is served by a CBDS, 

indicate the equivalent number of DS1s 

used; 

g. If the cell site is served by a PBDS, 

indicate the bandwidth of the circuit in 

Mbps; 

h. If the cell site is served by a 

wireless Connection, indicate the 

bandwidth of the circuit in Mbps; 

i. The name of the Provider(s) that 

supplies your Connection to the cell 

site; and 

j. If you self-provide a Connection to 

the cell site, the provisioned bandwidth 

of that self-provided Connection. 

F. All Purchasers must respond to the 

following questions: 

Expenditures Information 

1. What is the principal nature of your 

business, e.g., are you a CLEC, cable 

system operator, fixed wireless service 

provider, wireless Internet service 

provider, terrestrial or satellite mobile 

wireless service provider, 

interconnected VoIP service provider, 

etc.? 

2. What were your expenditures, i.e., 

dollar volume of purchases, on 

Dedicated Services for 2010 and 2012? 

For each year, report expenditures in 

total, separately for CBDS and PBDS 

purchases, and separately for purchases 

from ILECs and Competitive Providers. 

3. Provide your company’s 

expenditures, i.e., dollar volume of 

purchases, for DS1s, DS3s, and/or PBDS 

purchased from ILECs pursuant to a 

Tariff in 2010 and in 2012. For each of 

the following categories, report 

expenditures for each year in total and 

separately for DS1s, DS3s and PBDS: 

a. All DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS; 

b. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased at 

One Month Term Only Rates; 

c. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Tariff Plans; 

d. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Contract-Based Tariffs; 

e. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Tariff Plans that contained a 

Term Commitment but not a Volume 

Commitment; 

f. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Tariff Plans that contained a Prior 

Purchase-Based Commitment; 

i. Of the total (and for the separate 

DS1, DS3, and PBDS totals where 

applicable), indicate the average 

discount from the One Month Term 

Only Rate incorporated in the 

expenditures. 

For purposes of calculating the 

percentages described above, an 

example would be a Tariff Plan that 

requires a purchase of 20 DS1s and 10 

DS3 and generates expenditures of 

$2,000 for calendar-year 2012. If those 

same circuits were purchased at One 

Month Term Only Rates of $100 per DS1 

and $200 per DS3, then total 

expenditures would instead be $4,000. 

Since the Tariff Plan under this scenario 

generated 50% of the expenditures that 

would be generated from One Month 

Term Only Rates, the discount would be 

50%. 

g. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Contract-Based Tariffs that 

contained a Term Commitment but not 

a Volume Commitment; and 

h. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Contract-Based Tariffs that 

contained a Prior Purchased-Based 

Commitment; 

i. Of the total (and for the separate 

DS1 and DS3 totals if available), 

indicate the average discount from the 

One Month Term Only Rate 

incorporated in the expenditures. 

An example of how to calculate this 

percentage can be found at question 

II.F.3.f.i. 

4. What were your expenditures, i.e., 

dollar volume of purchases, on DS1s, 

DS3, and/or PBDS purchased from 

Competitive Providers pursuant to a 

Tariff in 2010 and in 2012? Report 

expenditures in total and separately for 

DS1s, DS3s and PBDS, as applicable, for 

the following categories for each year: 

a. All DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS; 

b. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased at 

One Month Term Only Rates; 

c. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Tariffs that contained a Term 

Commitment but not a Volume 

Commitment; 

d. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under Tariffs that contained a Prior 

Purchase-Based Commitment; 

i. Of the total (and for the separate 

DS1, DS3, and PBDS totals where 

applicable), indicate the average 

discount from the One Month Term 

Only Rate incorporated in the 

expenditures. 

An example of how to calculate this 

percentage can be found at 

questionII.F.3.f.i. 

5. What were your expenditures, i.e., 

dollar volume of purchases, on DS1s, 

DS3s, and/or PBDS purchased from 

ILECs and Competitive Providers 

pursuant to an agreement (not a Tariff) 

in 2010 and in 2012? Report 

expenditures in total, separately for 

purchases from ILECs andCompetitive 

Providers, and separately for DS1s, DS3s 

and PBDS, as applicable, for the 

followingcategories for each year: 

a. All DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS; 

b. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased at 

a non-discounted rate; 

c. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under a non-tariffed agreement that 

contained a Term Commitment but not 

a Volume Commitment; 

d. DS1s, DS3s, and PBDS purchased 

under a non-tariffed agreement that 

contained a Prior Purchase-Based 

Commitment; 

i. Of the total (and for the separate 

DS1, DS3, and PBDS totals where 

applicable), indicate the average 

discount from the non-discounted rate 

incorporated in the expenditures. 

An example of how to calculate this 

percentage can be found at question 

II.F.3.f.i. 

6. What were your expenditures, i.e., 

dollar volume of purchases, on PBDS 

purchased under a Tariff in 2010 and in 

2012? 

a. Separately for purchases from ILECs 

and Competitive Providers for the 

following service bandwidth categories: 

i. less than or equal to 1.5 Mbps; 

ii. greater than 1.5, but less than or 

equal to 50 Mbps; 

iii. greater than 50, but less than or 

equal to 100 Mbps; 

iv. greater than 100, but less than or 

equal to 1 Gbps; or 

v. greater than 1 Gbps. 

7. What were your expenditures, i.e., 

dollar volume of purchases, on nontariffed PBDS in 2010 and in 2012? 

a. Separately for purchases from ILECs 

and Competitive Providers for the 

following service bandwidth categories: 

i. less than or equal to 1.5 Mbps; 

ii. greater than 1.5, but less than or 

equal to 50 Mbps; 

iii. greater than 50, but less than or 

equal to 100 Mbps; 

iv. greater than 100, but less than or 

equal to 1 Gbps; or 

v. greater than 1 Gbps. 

Terms and Conditions Information 

8. Explain whether the terms and 

conditions of any contract to which you 

are a party for the purchase of Dedicated 

Services or the policies of any of your 

Providers constrain your ability to: 

a. Decrease your purchases from your 

current Provider(s); 

b. Purchase services from another 

Provider currently operating in the 

geographic areas in which you purchase 

services; 

c. Purchase non-tariffed services, such 

as Ethernet services, from your current 


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Provider of tariffed DS1, DS3, and/or 

PBDS services or from other Providers 

operating in the geographic areas in 

which you purchase tariffed services; 

d. Contract with companies that are 

considering entering the geographic 

areas in which you purchase tariffed 

services; 

e. Move circuits, for example, moving 

your DS1 and/or DS3 End-User Channel 

Terminations to connect to another 

Transport Provider; or 

f. Obtain Dedicated Services. 

Relevant terms and conditions, among 

others, may include: (a) Early 

termination penalties; (b) shortfall 

provisions; (c) overlapping/ 

supplemental discounts plans with 

different termination dates; (d) 

requirements to include all services, 

including new facilities, under a Tariff 

Plan or Contract-Based Tariff; or (e) 

requiring purchases in multiple 

geographic areas to obtain maximum 

discounts. 

In your answer, highlight contracts 

with particularly onerous constraints by 

comparison with more typical contract 

provisions. Also, at a minimum, list: (a) 

The Provider and indicate whether the 

Provider is an ILEC or a Competitive 

Provider; (b) a description of the term or 

condition; (c) the geographic area in 

which the tariffed services are provided; 

(d) the name of the vendor providing the 

tariffed service; and (e) the specific 

Tariff number(s) and section(s), or if the 

policy at issue is recorded in documents 

other than Tariffs, list those documents 

and how you obtained them. 

If you allege that a term, condition, or 

Provider’s policy negatively affects your 

ability to obtain Dedicated Services, 

state whether you have brought a 

complaint to the Commission, a state 

commission or court about this issue 

and the outcome. If you have not 

brought a complaint, explain why not. 

9. Explain your experience with 

changing Transport Providers between 

January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2012, 

describing whether and how it has 

impacted your ability to purchase 

Dedicated Services. Where appropriate, 

identify the Provider(s) in your 

responses below. 

a. How many times did you change 

Transport Providers while keeping your 

End User Channel Terminations with an 

ILEC or Competitive Provider? An 

estimate of the number of circuits 

moved to a new Transport Provider, or 

the number of such changes requested 

for each year, is sufficient. 

b. What was the length of time, on 

average, it took for the ILEC or 

Competitive Provider to complete the 

process of connecting your last-mile 

End-user Channel Terminations to 

another Transport Provider? An 

estimate is sufficient. 

c. Were you given the opportunity to 

negotiate time lines on a case-by-case 

basis? 

d. How did connecting to a new 

Transport Provider impact the rate you 

paid for the End User Channel 

Terminations you continued to 

purchase from the ILEC or Competitive 

Provider? 

e. Did connecting to a new Transport 

Provider typically impact the rate you 

continued to pay for Transport Service 

from the incumbent Provider while the 

change in Transport Providers remained 

pending? If so, what was the average 

percentage change in rates? Did you 

ever pay a One Month Term Only Rate 

during that time? 

10. Describe any circumstances since 

January 1, 2010, in which you have 

purchased circuits pursuant to a Tariff, 

solely for the purpose of meeting a 

Volume Commitment required for a 

discount or Non-Rate Benefit from your 

Provider (i.e., you did not utilize the 

circuits). In your description, provide at 

least one example, which at a minimum, 

lists: 

a. The geographic area (e.g., MSA or 

Non-MSA) in which you purchased the 

unnecessary circuits; 

b. The name of the Provider providing 

the circuits at issue; 

c. A description of the Volume 

Commitment; 

d. The Tariff and section number(s), if 

applicable, of the specific terms and 

conditions described; 

e. A comparison of the dollar amount 

of the unnecessary circuit(s) purchased 

versus the dollar amount of penalties 

your company would have had to pay 

had it not purchased and/or maintained 

the circuit(s), and a description of how 

that comparison was calculated. 

11. For each year for the past five 

years, state the number of times and in 

what geographic area(s) you have 

switched from one Provider of 

Dedicated Services to another. 

12. Explain the circumstances since 

January 1, 2010 under which you have 

paid One Month Term Only Rates for 

DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS services and the 

impact, if any, it had on your business 

and your customers. In your response, 

indicate any general rules you follow, if 

any, concerning the maximum number 

of circuits and maximum amount of 

time you will pay at One Month Term 

Only Rates, and your business rationale 

for any such rules. 

13. Separately list all available Tariffs 

under which your company purchases 

DS1s, DS3s, and/or PBDS and provide 

the information requested below for 

each plan. 

a. This plan is a: 

b Tariff Plan 

b Contract-Based Tariff (select one) 

b. Plan name: 

c. Provider name: 

d. Tariff and Section Number(s): 

e. Tariff type: 

b Interstate 

b Intrastate 

f. This plan contains: 

b Term Commitment(s) 

b Volume Commitment(s) 

b Non-Rate Benefit option(s) (select 

all that apply) 

g. If the plan contains Non-Rate 

Benefits, identify the Non-Rate Benefits 

that were relevant to your decision to 

purchase services under this plan. 

h. This plan can be applied to the 

purchase of: 

b DS1 services 

b DS3 services 

b PBDS 

b Other (select all that apply) 

i. In what geographic areas do you 

purchase DS1s, DS3s, and/or PBDS 

under this plan, e.g., nationwide, a 

particular region of the country, certain 

states, certain MSAs, a particular study 

area? 

j. To receive a discount or Non-Rate 

Benefit under this plan, does your 

company make a Prior Purchase-Based 

Commitment? 

b Yes 

b No 

k. If this is an ILEC plan, do DS1 or 

DS3 purchases your company makes 

outside the study area(s) of the ILEC 

(e.g., purchases from an Affiliated 

Company of the ILEC that is providing 

out-of-region service as a CLEC) count 

towards meeting any Volume 

Commitment to receive a discount or 

Non-Rate Benefit under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment, not 

an ILEC plan) 

i. If you answered yes, in what 

geographic areas outside the study 

area(s) of the ILEC, do you purchase 

these DS1s and/or DS3s? 

ii. Of the geographic areas identified, 

in which of those areas would your 

company have purchased from a 

different Provider, if at all, had it not 

been for the discounts or Non-Rate 

Benefits received under this plan? In 

your response, indicate whether the 

Provider that you would have purchased 

from has Connections serving that 

geographic area. 

l. If this is an ILEC plan, do DS1 and/ 

or DS3 purchases your company makes 

from the ILEC in price cap areas where 

the Commission has not granted the 

ILEC pricing flexibility count towards 

meeting any Volume Commitment to 


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2598 Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 

receive a discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment, not 

an ILEC plan) 

i. If you answered yes, then identify 

the price cap areas where you purchase 

DS1s and/or DS3s that count towards 

meeting any Volume Commitment to 

receive a discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

under this plan? 

m. If this is an ILEC plan, do DS1 and/ 

or DS3 purchases your company makes 

from the ILEC in areas where the 

Commission has granted either Phase I 

or Phase II Pricing Flexibility count 

towards meeting any Volume 

Commitment to receive a discount or 

Non-Rate Benefit under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment, not 

an ILEC plan) 

i. If you answered yes, in what 

geographic areas subject to pricing 

flexibility do you purchase DS1s and/or 

DS3s that count towards meeting any 

Volume Commitment to receive a 

discount or Non-Rate Benefit under this 

plan? 

ii. Of the geographic areas identified, 

in which of those areas would your 

company have purchased from a 

different Provider, if at all, had it not 

been for the requirements of the Tariff 

Plan? In your response, indicate 

whether the Provider that you would 

have purchased from has Connections 

serving that geographic area. 

n. If this is an ILEC plan, do nontariffed PBDS purchases you make from 

this ILEC count towards meeting any 

Volume Commitment to receive a 

discount or Non-Rate Benefit under this 

plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment, not 

an ILEC plan) 

i. If you answered yes, in what 

geographic areas do you purchase nontariffed PBDS that counts towards 

meeting any Volume Commitment to 

receive a discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

under this plan. 

ii. Of the geographic areas identified, 

in which of those areas would your 

company have purchased PBDS from a 

different Provider, if at all, had it not 

been for the requirements of the plan? 

In your response, indicate whether the 

Provider that you would have purchased 

from has Connections serving that 

geographic area. 

o. If this is an ILEC plan, do purchases 

you make for services other than DS1s, 

DS3s, and PBDS from this ILEC count 

towards meeting any Volume 

Commitment to receive a discount or 

Non-Rate Benefit under this plan? 

b Yes 

b No 

b N/A (no Volume Commitment, not 

an ILEC plan) 

i. If you answered yes, identify the 

other services purchased and the 

geographic areas where you purchase 

these services that count towards 

meeting any Volume Commitment to 

receive a discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

under this plan. 

ii. Of the geographic areas identified, 

in which of those areas would your 

company have purchased those other 

services from a different Provider, had it 

not been for the requirements of the 

plan? In your response, indicate 

whether the Provider that you would 

have purchased from has Connections 

serving that geographic area. 

p. Is the discount or Non-Rate Benefit 

available under this plan conditioned 

on the customer limiting its purchase of 

UNEs, e.g., the customer must keep its 

purchase of UNEs below a certain 

percentage of the customer’s total 

spend? If yes, then provide additional 

details about the condition. 

14. Do you have any non-tariffed 

agreement with an ILEC that, directly or 

indirectly, provides a discount or a NonRate Benefit on the purchase of tariffed 

DS1, DS3, and/or PBDS services, 

restricts your ability to obtain UNEs, or 

negatively affects your ability to 

purchase Dedicated Services? 

b Yes 

b No 

a. If so, identify each agreement 

below, including the parties to the 

agreement, the effective date, and a 

summary of the relevant provisions. 

G. Non-Providers and Non-Purchasers 

instructed to respond to this data 

collection must respond to the 

following: 

1. If you must respond to this data 

collection because you filed the FCC 

Form 477 in 2012 to report the 

provision of ‘‘broadband connections to 

end user locations’’ but are not (a) a 

Provider or a Purchaser as defined in 

this data collection or (b) an entity that 

provides Best Efforts Business 

Broadband Internet Access Services, 

then indicate as such below and 

complete the certification 

accompanying this data collection. 

b I am not a Provider. 

b I am not a Purchaser. 

b I do not provide Best Efforts 

Business Broadband Internet Access 

Services. 

(select all that apply) 

Certification 

I have examined the response and 

certify that, to the best of my 

knowledge, all statements of fact, data, 

and information contained therein are 

true and correct. 

Signature: lllllllllllll

Printed Name: lllllllllll

Title: lllllllllllllll

Date: llllllllllllllll

*Respondents are reminded that 

failure to comply with these data 

reporting requirements may subject 

them to monetary forfeitures of up to 

$150,000 for each violation or each day 

of a continuing violation, up to a 

maximum of $1,500,000 for any single 

act or failure to act that is a continuing 

violation. False statements or 

misrepresentations to the Commission 

may be punishable by fine or 

imprisonment under Title 18 of the U.S. 

Code. 

VI. Ordering Clauses 

136. Accordingly, it is ordered that 

pursuant to sections 1, 4(i), 4(j), 5, 201– 

205, 211, 215, 218, 219, 303(r), 332, 403, 

and 503 of the Communications Act of 

1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 

154(j), 155, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 211, 

215, 218, 219, 303(r), 332, 403, 503, and 

section 706 of the Telecommunications 

Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 1302, the Report 

and Order, with all attachments, is 

adopted March 12, 2013, except for 

those rules and requirements involving 

Paperwork Reduction Act burdens, 

which shall become effective upon 

announcement in the Federal Register 

of OMB approval and an effective date 

of the rule(s), and except as specified in 

paragraph 137. 

137. It is further ordered that we 

delegate authority to the Wireline 

Competition Bureau to implement a 

data collection in accordance with the 

terms of this Report and Order, and that 

this delegation of authority is effective 

upon adoption, see 47 U.S.C. 155(c). 

138. It is further ordered that the data 

collection shall become effective upon 

announcement in the Federal Register 

of Office of Management and Budget 

approval and an effective date of the 

requirements. 

139. It is further ordered that the 

Commission SHALL SEND a copy of 

this Report and Order to Congress and 

the Government Accountability Office 

pursuant to the Congressional Review 

Act, see 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). 

140. It is further ordered that the 

Commission’s Consumer and 

Governmental Affairs Bureau, Reference 

Information Center, shall send a copy of 

this Report and Order, including the 

Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis, to 

the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the 

Small Business Administration. 


tkelley on DSK3SPTVN1PROD with 
Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 8 / Friday, January 11, 2013 / Rules and Regulations 2599 

Federal Communications Commission. 

Marlene H. Dortch, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2013–00278 Filed 1–10–13; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6712–01–P 


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