USTelecom, Incompas Ask FCC To Allow Public Filings of Aggregated Special Access Data

USTelecom and Incompas jointly asked the FCC to allow parties to make public aggregated data derived from industry filings in the agency's special access business broadband rulemaking, which the commission has prohibited as confidential or highly confidential information subject to a protective order. USTelecom and some ILECs previously made such requests (see 1602230057 and 1601290053), but Incompas represents CLECs and wireless critics of the ILECs, giving the telco request broader backing. In a filing posted Monday in docket 05-25, USTelecom and Incompas want parties to be able to include in their public comments and filings “numerical, statistical, and graphical descriptions of data aggregated at the national level, including the presence of providers and their facilities,” with data allowed to be aggregated for industry segments such as ILECs, CLECs and cable, but not for single providers such as Level 3. They also asked that parties be able to make public such data aggregated at a regional level and for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), states, or urban, suburban or rural areas, without identifying the particular MSAs, states, or areas. They asked that the data descriptions be allowed "at the national, regional, anonymized MSA or other anonymized location or circuit level concerning the adequacy and completeness of the data.” They provided examples for each of the categories listed, but said the list wasn't meant to be exhaustive and asked the FCC to confirm there may be other categories of nonconfidential aggregated data that could be filed in the public record. They also said the category lists were included only to clarify the requests, not to mean that either group was expressing a view as to their “relevance or probative value.” USTelecom further asked that the commission encourage all parties to review the redactions in their comments or filings "to remove any improper redactions of non-confidential information, consistent with the categories on the list (as those categories may be revised and approved by the FCC), and to resubmit those comments and filings into the public record" to inform the debate. The FCC had no comment.