Section 709.2 - Open competition for intrastate interchange telecommunications service (intrastate interLATA)(a) The commission shall authorize fully open competition for intrastate interexchange telecommunications service, otherwise known as intrastate interLATA, or intrastate service between local access and transport areas, in California if federal legislation or court action amends the modification of final judgment entered by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in United States v. Western Electric, Civil Action No. 82-0192, to allow open competition in that service.(b)(1) If neither federal law nor court action has authorized full intrastate interexchange competition, the commission shall order the opening of all intrastate interexchange telecommunications markets to full competition, and the commission shall order, no later than October 1, 1995, all telephone corporations subject to the restrictions in the modification of final judgment to offer full intrastate interexchange service, and to seek a waiver of the interexchange telecommunications service restriction from the federal court overseeing the modification of final judgment. The service may be offered through resale and through facilities owned by the telephone corporations.(2) If the federal district court denies the waiver request, and an appeal is taken and the federal Court of Appeals affirms the denial and refuses to remand the waiver request to the federal district court for further review, and review is sought in the United States Supreme Court and that court refuses to review or reviews and affirms the lower court decisions denying the waiver, and the commission determines that all reasonable legal recourse has been exhausted by the telephone corporation, the commission shall rescind the order.(3) No order shall be implemented, nor services marketed by the telephone corporations until a waiver is granted or until federal legislation or court action amends the modification of final judgment to allow open competition in intrastate interexchange telecommunications service.(c) No commission order authorizing or directing competition in intrastate interexchange telecommunications shall be implemented until the commission has done all of the following, pursuant to the public hearing process:(1) Determined that all competitors have fair, nondiscriminatory, and mutually open access to exchanges currently subject to the modified final judgment and interexchange facilities, including fair unbundling of exchange facilities, as prescribed in the commission's Open Access and Network Architecture Development Proceeding (I. 93-04-003 and R. 93-04-003).(2) Determined that there is no anticompetitive behavior by the local exchange telephone corporation, including unfair use of subscriber information or unfair use of customer contacts generated by the local exchange telephone corporation's provision of local exchange telephone service.(3) Determined that there is no improper cross-subsidization of intrastate interexchange telecommunications service by requiring separate accounting records to allocate costs for the provision of intrastate interexchange telecommunications service and examining the methodology of allocating those costs.(4) Determined that there is no substantial possibility of harm to the competitive intrastate interexchange telecommunications markets.(d) The opening of intrastate interexchange telecommunications markets to competition pursuant to this section shall not precede, but may be coincident with, the opening of competition within the local exchange markets, as expressly authorized by the commission, subject to subdivision (c).(e) No part of this section shall be construed as constituting a state action within the meaning of Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341.(f) No part of this section shall be construed to preempt application of the unfair practices or antitrust laws of this state.Ca. Pub. Util. Code § 709.2
Added by Stats. 1994, Ch. 934, Sec. 3. Effective January 1, 1995.