CompTel accuses Verizon of hiding audit information

CompTel President H. Russell Frisby Jr. yesterday accused Verizon Communications of violating the Telecom Act by redacting, or “black lining,” critical information submitted to the FCC in the carrier’s biennial audit report for New York State.

In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Frisby also accused the FCC of failing to make the results of the audit “meaningfully available” to the public, as required by the Telecom Act.

Section 272 of the Act requires incumbent carriers that have been granted approval to provide in-region long-distance service to submit to an independent audit in order to assure they are still in compliance with the competition requirements defined by Section 271 of the Act. According to CompTel, the FCC can rescind its 271 approval for any carrier found in violation of Section 272.

A Verizon spokesman said the carrier has fully complied with the provisions of Section 272 and called CompTel’s complaint a “red herring.” He described some of the information provided for the audit as “customer-specific and competition-sensitive” concerning wholesale customers, including Verizon’s retail unit.

“We protect that information,” he said.

Because of the sensitivity of the information, the spokesman said regulators who review the audit sign non-disclosure agreements but have full access to all information needed to make their determinations.

“The Act contemplated that this process would involve sensitive information,” he said. “There is a specific reference in the Act that says states have the responsibility to set up a mechanism to deal with competitively sensitive information that may be contained in these reports.”

A CompTel spokeswoman countered by accusing Verizon of “hiding under proprietary information” and said the association and its members believe the Bell company provides its affiliated carriers (i.e., Verizon’s long-distance division) with “special treatment” not available to non-affiliated carriers (competitive long-distance carriers such as AT&T, WorldCom and Sprint). She called the FCC “the bad guy” for not forcing Verizon to make the redacted information available to the public.

“The only way we can prove our accusations is to have access to all of the data,” she said. “The FCC needs to enforce the Act.”

The spokeswoman said failure to do so would set a dangerous and unfortunate precedent.

“The Verizon audit is critical because it’s the first one,” she said. “If the FCC handles this wrong, we’ll see SBC and BellSouth do the same things.”