The FCC has released a series of orders streamlining the FCC’s rules and procedures for transitioning away from legacy copper networks. One of the Orders granted a USTelecom – the Broadband Association petition to waive the standalone requirement when a carrier seeks to discontinue a legacy voice service. The Wireline Competition Bureau has granted this waiver for two years, unless it is extended prior to its expiration. Another Order by the WCB waived, on its own motion, the filing requirements in the FCC’s network change disclosure rules for a period of two years. For short-term network changes and copper retirements, this waiver effectively eliminates the Bureau’s public notice process and objection process for interconnected service providers.
A Order on Clarification clarifies that carriers seeking to discontinue legacy networks are not required to conduct performance testing in demonstrating, based on the totality of the circumstances, that a replacement service has substantially similar network performance and availability as the service being discontinued. Lastly, the Bureau adopted an Order that allows carriers to stop offering their legacy voice and data services to new customers without filing discontinuance applications.
