STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS,
CONCURRING
Re: Petitions of the Verizon Telephone Companies for Forbearance Pursuant to 
47 U.S.C. 160(c) in the Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence 
and Virginia Beach Metropolitan Statistical Areas, WC Docket No. 06-172, 
Memorandum Opinion and Order
I support today’s Order which denies petitioner forbearance relief from dominant 
carrier regulation and from its UNE and Computer III obligations. In doing so, the 
Commission further supports its view that Qwest-Omaha and ACS-Anchorage were truly 
unique situations. I concur in this decision because the Commission continues to rely too 
heavily on the intermodal efforts of a single alternative provider to decide whether we 
should forbear from the incumbent’s retail and wholesale obligations. The Telecom Act 
envisioned more than just a cable-telephone duopoly as sufficient competition in the 
marketplace. In this case, the Order fortunately finds that forbearance is inappropriate 
because the petitioner does not face enough facilities-based competition from the local 
cable operator to meet Section 10’s forbearance standard.  However, I remain concerned 
that under the Commission’s analysis, forbearance might be deemed appropriate were 
cable found to have a larger market share. Such a finding in the future would put at risk 
smaller competitive providers as evidenced by the fact that some competitors chose not to 
compete in Omaha after the Qwest-Omaha forbearance decision. I would have been more 
comfortable with an analysis less accepting of duopoly as a competitive marketplace and 
that did not lead us further down this road.
While the final outcome in this case is a good one, I continue to be less than 
enthused about the process that got the Commission here at all. Just consider the amount 
of resources the Commission has expended in the last 15 months working to adjudicate 
this matter. And this is not to mention the resources spent by numerous competitors with 
far less resources than the incumbent telephone company. Further, the Commission’s 
policy making was dictated largely by the petitioner. The Commission’s decision would 
not have applied on an industry-wide basis as it typically does in a rulemaking. Instead, 
granting the petition would have merely sparked more forbearance petitions. And just 
imagine the wholly wasted resources had the petitioner decided to withdraw the petition 
at the eleventh hour as others have done when they were unhappy with the proposed 
result. The Commission could have addressed some of the procedural flaws in the context 
of this Order but chose not to do so. In light of all this, I certainly hope that we complete 
the recently announced NPRM on forbearance procedures as expeditiously as possible.