IXCs Must Cancel Tariffs
Although its efforts to force long distance carriers to withdraw their tariffs were stymied for years, the FCC finally convinced the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the agency has the authority to prohibit interexchange carriers ("IXCs") from filing tariffs (so-called "mandatory detariffing") for their domestic, interstate interexchange services. On April 28, 2000, the court found that the statutory "forbearance" provision added by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 empowered the FCC to order mandatory detariffing. The court rejected the IXCs’ claims that, instead of mandatory detariffing, the FCC should have ordered "permissive detariffing" (i.e., permitting, but not requiring, IXCs to cancel their tariffs). As a result of the decision, the FCC’s detariffing order likely will cause significant changes to the relation-ships between IXCs and their large corporate cus-tomers.
