NARUC's Federalism Task Force released the final draft report on cooperative federalism and telecomn(http://bit.ly/17d1bBZ). The report, based on “listening sessions” and written comments from anrange of parties, will guide NARUC’s members on interaction with state and federal legislators as well asnagencies for communications policy, it said Monday. NARUC backs joint boards between the FCC andnthe states for “collectively seeking, developing and implementing communications policy recommendations.”nThe report urges the FCC to determine the regulatory status of VoIP and other Internet Protocolenablednservices. The states should continue to maintain the primary and immediate responsibility fornend-user consumer protection and for ensuring service reliability, safety and service quality under statenlaws, the report said. Interconnection is “necessary to ensure ubiquitous service and enhance competitionnamong providers,” said the report, and should be required for all providers regardless of the technologynthey use. The states are also “well positioned to work with all stakeholders” to ensure there's “robustncompetition” and customer choice across their specific jurisdictions, the report said. It calls for the states,nFCC and service providers to work together to ensure that all customers can access emergency servicesnand call-completion problems. States need to work with the FCC through the Federal-State Joint Boardnon Universal Service to ensure that service providers continue to meet the social policy goals through providingnaccess to services such as Lifeline, Telecommunications Relay Service and carrier of last resort obligationsnas permitted by state law, said the report. CompTel said it was “particularly encouraged” by thentask force’s recognition of the states’ role in arbitrating interconnection agreements. The association alsonis pleased that the report encourages states to monitor the status of competition, “as this is critical in evaluatingnthe effect of the FCC’s last mile policies and the need for modernizing them in order to enable anwholesale market that ensures and further enhances competition,” said Angie Kronenberg, CompTel generalncounsel, in an email. While the report is final, the task force will review any comments it receives,nNational Regulatory Research Institute Principal Telecom Researcher Sherry Lichtenberg, a task forcenmember, told us. The task force will present a resolution to accept the report at NARUC's Novembernmeeting. If the measure passes, the report will become NARUC policy.
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