Opinion ID: 76304
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Market Negotiations Prior to FCC's Resolution of the Dispute

Text: 48 According to Georgia Power, the plain language of the Telecommunications Act requires parties to negotiate pole rents prior to filing a complaint with the Commission. 47 U.S.C. § 224(e)(1) (The Commission shall ... prescribe regulations ... to govern the charges for pole attachments used by telecommunications carriers to provide telecommunications services, when the parties fail to resolve a dispute over such charges.). FCC's regulations similarly invoke the Commission's rates [w]hen parties fail to resolve a dispute regarding charges for pole attachments. 47 C.F.R. § 1.1409(e). Georgia Power argues based on these rules that, because there had been no real negotiation between Georgia Power and Teleport, the parties had not yet failed to resolve the dispute and FCC intervened prematurely by ruling on the Teleport complaint. 49 Georgia Power's argument fails because its major premise is mistaken. Georgia Power characterizes 47 U.S.C. § 224(e)(1) and the related FCC regulations as permitting FCC to intervene only after negotiations between the parties have broken down. In fact, the statutory and administrative rule is not so limited. When negotiations fail the FCC rates will govern, but the statute is not written to limit the jurisdiction of the FCC to cases in which extensive rate negotiations have failed. At the very least, the statute is not so unambiguous that FCC's interpretation of it (as evidenced by its resolving the Teleport complaint) is contrary to a clearly expressed Congressional intent. Georgia Power therefore cannot prevail with a Chevron step one argument, and under Chevron step two, the agency's interpretation is reasonable enough to be entitled to deference. 50 Even if Georgia Power were correct in claiming that FCC can intervene in a pole attachment dispute only after the parties' negotiations are unable to reach an agreement, Georgia Power's argument that FCC intervened too quickly still fails. FCC concluded that Georgia Power and Teleport's limited discussions had failed to resolve their dispute over Georgia Power's new pole attachment rates, and further negotiations between the parties would be fruitless. Georgia Power unilaterally announced that it was raising its pole attachment rate to a relatively high $53.35. The parties exchanged some correspondence about the rate, and then Teleport filed its complaint with the FCC. The Cable Services Bureau concluded that the parties' positions had jelled. Teleport, 16 F.C.C.R. at 20,241, ¶ 8; see also Final Order, 17 F.C.C.R. at 19,867, ¶ 21 (We think it was reasonable for Teleport to conclude that further efforts at negotiation were fruitless in the absence of Commission intervention.). Georgia Power does not challenge the substantive accuracy of this conclusion; instead, it argues that some additional, formal negotiations were required before FCC could conclude that further negotiations would be futile. When Georgia Power announced its new $53.35 rate, however, it was quite clearly not attempting to open negotiations at that price but was instead attempting to fix a price unilaterally. Cf. S. Co., 313 F.3d at 583 (approving related FCC rules authorizing an attacher to file a complaint when a utility makes a take it or leave it demand for pole attachment fees). Georgia Power has not supplied a sufficient reason to doubt FCC's conclusion that it would have been useless for Teleport to do any more than it did to negotiate a better price. FCC therefore did not err by resolving Teleport when it did.