FCC may loosen telco reporting demands

The Federal Communications Commission may loosen the requirements for the types of information that telcos must provide as part of the agency's annual report program. The annual reports track information related to service outages, including outage durations and customer complaints, as well as capital expense information. The action could come as the FCC rules on a petition originally filed by AT&T asking that the reporting requirements be eased. Verizon and Qwest also have filed similar petitions. The telcos may be looking to protect information they see as increasingly vulnerable with the rise of new competition.

Consumer groups are against the changes, which would make it harder to find public information related to customer complaints and service issues. It is not yet clear how the FCC will rule, or to what degree requirements could be eased. But the agency also may need to consider how non-traditional telecom service providers, such as cable TV companies and VoIP carriers, may fit into its reporting program.

For more:
- read this report [1] at The Washington Post

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