Opinion ID: 421797
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Order After Investigation

Text: 36 In its Order After Investigation, issued on September 29, 1982, the FCC expressly recognized its obligation to ensure that AT & T's tariff revisions conform to the terms of the ENFIA agreement and do not undermine [its] finding that the agreement is reasonable and in the public interest. Order After Investigation, 91 F.C.C.2d at 1086. Applying this standard, the Commission rejected AT & T's proposed rate increases and directed AT & T to file a replacement tariff using a [Separations] Amount no higher than $.0595, a billed minute factor no higher than 4474, and an overall Element 2 and 3 rate no higher than $183.46. Id. at 1093. 11 37 These conclusions rested largely on the FCC's interpretation of the ENFIA Agreement. After noting the ambiguity of certain contract terms and the disagreements among the parties concerning how those [229 U.S.App.D.C. 214] terms should be applied to the changed circumstances of the OCC industry, the FCC endeavored to apply the agreement in a manner consistent with the intent of the parties. Id. at 1086. In the Commission's view, 38 [t]he parties intended that ENFIA rates would reflect a compromise between rates based upon the full cost assigned to interstate jurisdiction ... and the rates for local service ... which the OCCs had been paying. Put simply, the ENFIA agreement was a rough justice compromise intended to maintain a reasonable balance between the parties until Commission-prescribed access arrangements could be put into place. 39 Id. 40 With that background, the FCC made two determinations that are challenged in these proceedings. It held, first, that the OCCs' off-peak MOUs should be discounted by the same percentage as AT & T's off-peak subscriber rates, and authorized a forty-percent evening discount and a sixty-percent discount for nighttime and weekend calls. The question of nonbusiness or off-peak minutes, the Commission believed, had not been contemplated when the ENFIA Agreement was negotiated because the OCCs had little or no business outside peak periods at that time. This lack of specific consideration, the Commission concluded, left it free reasonably to apply the original intent of the parties to the altered characteristics of OCC services by adopting a middle-ground approach between the OCCs' position that off-peak MOUs should not be counted at all and AT & T's position that all MOUs should be counted equally. Id. at 1091. 41 In its second challenged determination, the FCC held that AT & T's calculation of the Separations Amount must be adjusted to reflect and accommodate [the Commission's] recent decision to freeze SPF at 1981 average levels, a development neither anticipated nor provided for under the [ENFIA] agreement. Id.; see note 4 supra. Although the Commission previously had rejected the OCCs' contention that the viability of the ENFIA Agreement had been vitiated by the SPF freeze, Extension Order, 90 F.C.C.2d at 11, it concluded that the freeze would deny the OCCs the benefit of a discount contemplated by the signatories. Implementing a corresponding freeze of the Separations Amount at the 1981 level of $.0595, the FCC held, would 42 maintain the proper status quo of interstate subscriber plant costs for the OCCs until new interstate allocative measures are put into effect, and will help prevent disruptive and inequitable rate increases to the OCCs in the remaining interval before the completion of the Commission's work ... [in Docket 78-72 ]. 43 Order After Investigation, 91 F.C.C.2d at 1092. The Commission ultimately concluded that the rates produced by its interpretations of the disputed contract terms should strike a reasonable balance as an interim measure. Id. at 1093.