marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: The FCC news release on these new rules There are additional findings on existing rules summarized in paragraphs 5 and 65(item 4 will especially cause some problems) and detailed in paragraphs (67, 70, 72, and 73), (82, 89, 90, and 91), (103 and 104), (105, 108, and 109), (110, 114, 115, 119, and 120) and (121 and 122).
Footnote 149 is pretty interesting. Basically, Verizon got caught heavily stretching the truth about unrelated LFA demands. It is especially interesting in light of footnote 352 where AT&T and Verizon refused (after the Tampa Bay incident) to provide details of which LFAs had made unrelated demands.
Paragraphs 105 and 108 are particularly important, since they specify that requests in the community needs assessments count towards the 5% franchise fee cap with no requirement that the requests be fulfilled. This should eventually be challenged in court, but technically this means that a franchise applicant can apply an entire community needs assessment to franchise fees without spending a cent.
119 is a big kicker, because it provides a judicial method of blocking PEG and I-Net support completely even if agreed to in a franchise. Any support for an LEC is essentially voluntary now and cannot be required (see footnote 396).
Paragraph 121 authorizes construction of video facilities if combined with non-video facilities without a franchise as long as video services are not deployed. This will be important in a few ongoing legal disputes.
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