
..Case Studies
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Dispute
Resolution
Commissions have been increasingly burdened with the need to resolve
intercarrier disputes, which involve complex technical, operating,
contractual, and policy issues not traditionally within their
jurisdiction and expertise. Many commissions have turned to Liberty
as a source of mediation, facilitation, and adjudication of such
disputes. Liberty has provided senior, experienced experts to serve
as arbitrators of interconnection agreement disputes between
telecommunications carriers for the public service commissions of
Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, and North Dakota.
In
addition, Liberty has provided a facilitator who acted in a capacity
like that of an Administrative Law Judge for the states of Idaho,
Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming in
multi-state proceedings (involving more than 30 days of hearings).
The purpose of these proceedings was to resolve more than a hundred
disputed issues involving RBOC compliance with the 1996
Telecommunications Act’s competitive checklist that specified the
interconnection and network access duties owed to competitors. For
those same states and two others, Liberty also provided dispute
resolution services that addressed deadlock among carriers over many
important and complex issues related to the payments and penalties
to which carriers and states would be entitled when the RBOC failed
to meet specific performance requirements.
Liberty has also served as an Administrative Law Judge in disputes
involving paging companies and local exchange carriers with whom
they interconnect and take service. Liberty also routinely serves
as the technical advisor to Administrative Law Judges for the
Delaware Public Service Commission when they sit on intercarrier
dispute proceedings. Liberty has served as technical advisor to a
member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and also to all
the commissioners of the District of Columbia Public Service
Commission in proceedings related to state reviews under Section 271
of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. |