KDD Requests FCC to Reconsider

KDD Requests FCC to Reconsider the Report and Order

1998-001

January 9, 1998

KDD (Japan's Global Communications) filed with the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) on January 8 (U.S. time) its petition for reconsideration of the Report and Order (FCC 97-398) released by the Commission on November 26, 1997.

While KDD agrees with the FCC's decision to remove the effective competitive opportunities ("ECO") test for WTO member countries, KDD remains concerned that FCC has retained the discretion to deny foreign participation in the U.S. market by effectively re-introducing the ECO standard under the aegis of the vague "public interest" test, as well as the reservation for preliminary actions to restrict U.S. market entering as safeguards. KDD considers that these reservations pose great problems in that they would impose excessive regulations and lack transparency.

KDD, along with other telecommunications carriers, submitted to the FCC a comment on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) released last June ahead of this Report and Order including the revision of the evaluation standards. As the recent revision has failed to address the aforementioned problems, KDD has decided to request the FCC to reconsider the revision.

Gist of the request is as follows:

1. Requiring a review in the interest of "public interest" and imposing a restriction against entry into the US market are essentially the same as continuing to mandate the ECO test for WTO member countries, and should be reconsidered in light of the WTO agreement and GATS' framework.

2. In gauging at overseas side market power, which is used as the application criteria for the dominant carrier safeguards, if the overseas affiliate of a US carrier has no local bottleneck and is in competition with a number of other carriers, it should be perceived as having no market dominance.

3. If the FCC decides not to adopt concept 2., it should remove the dominant carrier safeguards, as it may be applied inappropriately to carriers with foreign affiliation.

1.	Requiring a review in the interest of "public interest" and imposing a restriction against entry into the US market are essentially the same as continuing to mandate the ECO test for WTO member countries, and should be reconsidered in light of the WTO agreement and GATS' framework.
2.	In gauging at overseas side market power, which is used as the application criteria for the dominant carrier safeguards, if the overseas affiliate of a US carrier has no local bottleneck and is in competition with a number of other carriers, it should be perceived as having no market dominance.
3.	If the FCC decides not to adopt concept 2., it should remove the dominant carrier safeguards, as it may be applied inappropriately to carriers with foreign affiliation.