CUT THE RED TAPE

This week the Federal Communications Commission proposed to fine SBC Communications $100,000 for allegedly violating an enforcement bureau order. The commission said SBC failed to provide required sworn statements in answer to allegations concerning its provisioning of DSL services to Internet service providers.

Never mind that SBC asked an attorney to prepare its 23-page response that the carrier said was "detailed, substantive and timely," and which "in no way impeded the Bureau's ability to gather information."

Last month it was more of the same, as the commission decided SBC was liable for $2.5 million in fines for allegedly misrepresenting information and for committing procedural violations concerning its Section 271 applications for Kansas and Oklahoma.

$1.2 million of this fine was attributed to SBC's failure to comply with a 1999 FCC Consent Decree that requires the carrier to train employees engaged in regular contact with the commission in the rules governing that contact.

According to SBC, one of its employees filed an affidavit in conjunction with the carrier's Kansas and Oklahoma applications. Because the employee had been in contact with the FCC just one other time over the course of her career, SBC believed she was exempt from the "regular contact" stipulation.

SBC said it would appeal both fines. As well it should.

A common carrier bureau official once told me that it is not unusual for documents submitted in support of a Section 271 application to arrive in an 18-wheeler. That's an enormous amount of information for the carrier to produce and for the commission to review. Consequently, the Section 271 process is an arduous, time-consuming and often painful process for all involved.

So be it. The FCC has a responsibility to the nation's residential and business consumers, and to Congress, to make sure the provisions of the Telecom Act of 1996 are met to the best of its ability. If it thinks it needs to kill a few hundred trees every time a carrier submits a Section 271 application, then that it is exactly what it should do.

But the commission shouldn't go out of its way to make the process any more difficult than it needs to be. That's just what it is doing by holding SBC to nitpicky procedures. An attorney is an officer of the court. If SBC did entrust one to prepare its response to the FCC, that response then should have been good enough for the commission. And the FCC should be able to recognize that a person who has but two contacts with the commission over the course of a career doesn't qualify as someone in "regular" contact.

If a carrier violates the Telecom Act, then the commission should bring down the hammer and hit them hard. In such instances, the FCC doesn't go far enough with its fines. They should make them hurt. If they don't hurt, they won't be effective.

But in instances such as those that have touched SBC over the past month, the FCC would be wiser to consider the spirit of the law rather than the letter.