Verizon wins 271 approval in Connecticut

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved Verizon Communications’ application to provide long-distance service in Connecticut.

Verizon has won approval for long-distance service in three states in which it is the incumbent. Previously, the company--the nation’s fourth-largest long-distance provider with about 5.2 million customers in 38 states--won FCC approval for New York in December 2000, and for Massachusetts in April of this year.

With the approval for Connecticut, Verizon pulls even with SBC Communications, which has gained Section 271 approval in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

According to a Verizon spokesman, practice makes perfect.

“When we went through the New York proceeding it was a very difficult, onerous kind of process the first time through, and we’ve gotten better and better in meeting the literally thousands and thousands of measurements … that the independent auditors use to demonstrate that we met the check list,” he explained. “The process is beginning to become very narrow and very focused because we know now what it takes to open up that network and we’re getting better at it.”

Making things somewhat easier for Verizon was the FCC’s recent decision to allow an application to contain “piggy-backed” data.

“Connecticut truly was a piggy-backed application onto the New York approval, simply because Connecticut uses the same systems that New York does,” the spokesman said. “In fact, … we only have 60,000 lines there, and they’re served out of New York central offices.”

However, the spokesman added that the real test of the piggy-backing approach will come when Verizon attempts to gain Section 271 approval for the remaining New England states. Those states use systems that are different than the system used in Massachusetts, which will provide the benchmark for those applications

Predictably, competitive carrier Sprint questioned whether Verizon had satisfied the Section 271 requirements in Connecticut.

“Sprint is disappointed that the FCC did not use this Section 271 application to signal a get-tough approach to Verizon and other Bell companies that have not truly opened up their local markets to competition,” said J. Richard Devlin, Sprint’s general counsel, in a statement.

Devlin called on regulators and policy makers to hold the incumbents to their “market obligations” as described by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and to fight the Tauzin-Dingell bill currently before Congress.

“This protectionist legislation guts the Telecom Act’s most pro-competitive provisions and demonstrates that the Bell companies’ real agenda is avoiding local competition.”