It did not take long for yesterday's post to garner a response from a state utility commissioner. At the Commissioner's request, the post is reprinted here anonymously.
"The problem with abandonment is the possibility, however slight, that the order gets upheld, and the FCC then applies its flawed analysis to your state to get its predetermined flawed outcome. The question is whether a state can apply the flawed analysis to yield the right result. Stay tuned..."
Regulators' confidence in the current rules is low. As indicated above, inaction invites a federal steamroller. Any movement forward must overcome the sense that the FCC has sent us down this road before only to be turned around by the D.C. Circuit Court. While joint board meetings and various resolutions sound the call of federal-state partnerships, they cannot really substitute for the decisions that state commissions must make on their own. Responsibility for the result, not the model or methodology, is state officials are held accountable to their governors or electorate. And facilities-based, inter-modal competition is the gold standard for success.