The Commonwealth Telecommunications Commission rejected early last night Gov. Juan N. Babauta\u2019s proposal for the establishment of special enforcement provisions and the imposition of a $10-million performance bond on Pacific Telecoms Inc. once it acquires control over Verizon\u2019s local operations from Micronesian Telecommunications Corp.<\/p>\n
This development narrows down the dispute arising from the governor\u2019s intervention in the approval of the sale to two issues: the financial audit to be completed by Deloitte and Touche to determine PTI\u2019s financial capability and Verizon\u2019s monopoly of the CNMI\u2019s fiber optic cable.<\/p>\n
In a meeting at the governor\u2019s conference room, CTC chair Norman Tenorio, commissioners Mike Fitzgerald and Josephine Mesta unanimously voted to reject Babauta\u2019s and CNMI consumer counsel Brian Caldwell\u2019s joint proposal on the enforcement provisions and bond requirement, inching the Verizon transaction a step closer to possible approval by the CTC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is close to impossible to impose a bond on PTI,\u201d the chairman said. \u201c[The bond] is just an additional cost of doing business. And let\u2019s face it\u2014this [cost] will be passed on to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tenorio said more faith should be placed on the CTC in its task to oversee PTI\u2019s operations, once its acquisition of the telecom company is consummated. He said PTI should be allowed to operate its affairs in a free enterprise setting.<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald said that, while he recognizes the interest of the governor and the CNMI consumer counsel to protect the interest of the public, the imposition of a $10-million performance bond is not the right way to ensure PTI\u2019s compliance with an approved settlement agreement. He said there could be better ways that could be crafted to ensure such compliance.<\/p>\n
PTI had opposed the proposal, describing it as anti-business. The company\u2019s reaction to the CTC decision was not immediately available last night.<\/p>\n
Babauta\u2019s lawyer, Assistant Attorney General James Livingstone, and Caldwell welcomed the CTC\u2019s decision, saying they would not contest it pursuant to the Final Negotiation Settlement Report released by CTC settlement officer Sean Frink.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision on [the] enforcement [provisions issue] doesn\u2019t in any way limit the power of the consumer counsel under the Commonwealth Telecommunications Act,\u201d Caldwell said.<\/p>\n
Livingstone also supported the CTC\u2019s clamor for funding, saying that its current financial problem might eventually affect the commission\u2019s enforcement capability.<\/p>\n
CTC executive director Adam Turner said the Legislature has not acted on proposed legislation addressing the commission\u2019s funding problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncluded in the settlement was a finding that the CTC needs resources to enforce the settlement and agreement between the parties to support legislation addressing this,\u201d Turner said. \u201cIn terms of enforcement, both parties [companies and intervenors] agree that the CTC needs these resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other issue involving competitive use of the fiber optic cable was not agreed to in this settlement and we have treated it as a contested case. Our regulations clearly address and contemplate competitive issues such as this,\u201d Turner also said.<\/p>\n
He said that, while Verizon\u2019s use of the fiber optic cable is clearly a monopoly, there are cases when natural monopolies are allowed to operate without any special regulation, such as cable television. He stressed, however, that the commission has yet to arrive at a decision, saying that there are also numerous cases of monopolies being regulated.<\/p>\n
The junked proposal for enforcement provisions provided for up to $500,000 of penalty should PTI eventually violate the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n
Under the proposal, anyone who believes that PTI is violating the settlement can provide the company a written notice of violation, which will give the company 30 days to remedy the situation. After 30 days, the complaining entity may then file with the CTC a complaint that attaches the written notice.<\/p>\n
Once it takes over MTC\u2019s Verizon operations, PTI has committed to end inter-island toll charges, protect local workers, increase local competition, guarantee certain technological offerings and no-rate increases for years.<\/p>\n
The governor and consumer counsel had proposed the bond requirement to ensure that PTI has the financial capability to pay a fine and correct possible violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Commission rejected early last night Gov. Juan N. Babauta\u2019s proposal for the establishment of special enforcement provisions and the imposition of a $10-million performance bond on Pacific Telecoms Inc. once it acquires control over Verizon\u2019s local operations from Micronesian Telecommunications Corp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}