Reporter’s notebook: Regulatory and policy

Telephony has learned that Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., next week will introduce legislation, perhaps as early as Monday, which would require the Bush administration to draft a national broadband deployment strategy. The bill, dubbed the National Broadband Strategy Act of 2002, would require President Bush to submit a report within six months of the bill’s enactment that would set a goal for the deployment of broadband services nationwide. It would also define policies that would foster suitable competition in order to deploy technologies capable of delivering transport speeds ranging from 10 MB/s to 100 MB/s. Full details on the Lieberman legislation will be found in the June 3 edition of Telephony, and will be available on-line on Monday…

Qwest Communications announced it has successfully completed the 13-state test of its operations support systems and performance and would begin filing applications for five of those states in the second week of June. Steve Davis, Qwest’s senior vice president of policy and law, said in a statement, “We have completed the most comprehensive systems and performance test ever, and Qwest got an A+.” Last month, Qwest completed the 14-point checklist required to enter long distance in Arizona. Originally the carrier said it expected to file its application with the FCC to provide in-region long distance under Section 271 of the Telecom Act in “late May” but now says the filing will come “within the next few weeks”…

SBC Communications was nailed with $3.6 million in fines concerning a consent decree--the regulatory equivalent of a plea bargain--stemming from two commission investigations that alleged the carrier submitted inaccurate information in support of two Section 271 applications to provide in-region long-distance service in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. In addition to writing a check to the U.S. Treasury, SBC agreed to implement specific, though unnamed, procedures designed to ensure the accuracy of future 271 affidavits submitted to the FCC. In a statement, SBC said the alleged inaccuracies were “the result of good faith efforts in describing highly technical matters, and not the product of any intent to mislead the commission or its staff.” AT&T, citing an earlier $6 million fine levied against SBC for allegedly “willfully and repeatedly” violating the conditions of its merger with Ameritech, said SBC once again “has flunked truth school.” AT&T said that unless fines “have a material impact on earnings,” there is no reason to believe another fine is “going to change [SBC’s] behavior.”

--Glenn Bischoff, Senior Writer