Access Charge Reform; Price Cap Performance Review for Local Exchange Carriers; Petition of U S West Communications, Inc. for Forbearance From Regulation as a Dominant Carrier in the Phoenix, AZ MSA; Interexchange Carrier Purchases of Switched Access Services Offered by Competitive Local Exchange Carriers

Zusammenfassung

This document revises the rules that govern the provision of interstate access services by those incumbent local exchange carriers subject to price cap regulation to advance the pro-competitive, de- regulatory national policies embodied in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. With these revisions, the Commission continues the process it began in 1997 to reform the regulation of interstate access charges in order to accelerate the development of competition in all telecommunications markets and to ensure that the Commission's own regulations do not unduly interfere with the operation of these markets as competition develops.