Clyburn Calls for FCC Release of BDS Competitive County List; Pai Rejects Plea

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the FCC should release a list of counties that would be deemed competitive in the business data services market and subject to price deregulation under a draft order tentatively slated for an April 20 vote. "The FCC should release this list immediately," she said in a statement. "This is the only way the public can truly evaluate the practical effects of the FCC’s proposed actions. If for some reason, that is unknown to me at this time, we cannot release this list expeditiously, we should delay our vote on the proposed Order until the public can see it ‘well in advance’ of a FCC vote." Incompas CEO Chip Pickering on April 4 urged release of the list of the competitive counties and said the draft order's competitive market test would cause 92 percent all locations using BDS to "see an end to protections against monopoly or duopoly pricing." The FCC's proposed action "will have serious ramifications" for the $45 billion BDS market, Clyburn said. "An integral piece of this proposed Order is a test to determine which counties will be deemed competitive, and thus deregulated. Chairman Pai has been a champion of transparency. It is puzzling, then, why he will release the text of the item, but omit a key appendix listing which counties are deemed competitive, until the Order is released. We have the information. It will become public when the Order is released. So why is it that the FCC has taken the position that it will vote on an Order before the public gets to see exactly what the Order does? Just what are we trying to hide?" A Pai spokesman dismissed Clyburn's call. Her "entire statement is based on a false premise; there is no such ‘appendix’ to the item," he emailed. "Moreover, it has been explained to Commissioner Clyburn’s office that publicly releasing the internal work product she is discussing at this point, which is not part of the Order, would violate the Trade Secrets Act. Finally, it is odd that Commissioner Clyburn had no problem voting on meeting items for over four years when the text of those items had not been made public. But now, she is calling for delay because information that is not part of a meeting item has not been made public.”