Opinion ID: 2623481
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The RCA Erred in Terminating ACS's Glacier State Study Area Exemptions.

Text: Initially, GCI sought to compete with ACS throughout the Glacier State Study Area. A study area is the designated geographic area that a carrier serves. [44] The Glacier State Study Area encompasses areas near Fairbanks, on Kodiak Island, and cities on the Kenai Peninsula. GCI formally withdrew its request to compete with ACS throughout the entire Glacier State Study Area, however. Thereafter, GCI maintained that its request was limited to only one exchange in the Glacier State Study Area. As Gene Strid, GCI witness and Vice President and General Manager of Local Services at GCI, explained at the first hearing: GCI at the present time seeks an interconnection for the termination and transport of local traffic, only at [ACS's] North Pole exchange. On remand, in May of 1999, Strid gave identical testimony. He testified explicitly that GCI had not requested interconnection at any other location in the Glacier State Study Area. At the present time no interconnection other than at the North Pole wire center is contemplated. At the June 1999 remand hearing before APUC, Strid testified on cross-examination that GCI was only seeking collocation at the North Pole exchange office. The RCA appeared to understand the limited nature of GCI's request, recognizing that GCI's request as modified during the hearing process is for interconnection at one location and resale throughout the balance of [ACS's] service area. Ultimately, however, the RCA terminated ACS's exemptions for the entire Glacier State Study Area. ACS appealed this decision, arguing primarily that by terminating ACS's exemption for the entire study area, despite GCI's limited request, the RCA acted contrary to the plain language of section 251(f)(1)(A) of the Telecommunications Act. The superior court affirmed the RCA's decision without discussing the scope of the Glacier State termination. ACS then filed a motion for clarification with the RCA, requesting that the RCA specify whether the scope of the termination was limited to the parameters of GCI's request. The RCA denied this motion. ACS argues that the RCA erred by terminating its rural exemption for the entire Glacier State Study Area when GCI made only a limited request. The RCA responds that a partial or divisible exemption cannot be granted under section 251(f) and that, once a bona fide requesteven a narrow, localized requestis made, and once evidence supporting that request is presented, the Act requires the RCA to terminate the areawide exemption completely. But we find this response unpersuasive. The RCA cites no authority to support its reading of section 251(f). Moreover, nothing in section 251(f)'s language precludes localized termination or requires areawide termination when, as here, a request is specifically limited to one exchange among many included in an exempted study area. Indeed, the RCA's proposed reading of section 251(f) would invite anomalous consequences, for it would open broad areas to competition based on artificially constricted evidence and findings concerning the economic and technical hardships that a competitor's presence might create in an isolated segment of the exempted area. We thus agree with ACS's argument and hold that, even if the burden of proof had been properly allocated, the RCA would have erred in terminating the Glacier State Study Area exemption, except as it applied to the North Pole exchange.