Federal Communications Commission FCC 14-175 
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CONCURRING STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL O’RIELLY
Re: Rural Call Completion, WC Docket No. 13-39.
Americans expect their calls to be completed no matter where they live.  So the FCC has worked 
hard to better understand and reduce rural call completion problems.  These efforts have ranged from 
Declaratory Rulings and enforcement actions to the latest endeavor, contained in the 2013 Report and 
Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, to collect more data and seek further comment.  I 
commend and support these efforts.
I must concur with today’s Order on Reconsideration, however.  While the FCC should root out 
call completion problems, it should not take procedural and legal shortcuts along the way that undermine 
the agency’s credibility across proceedings.  Unfortunately, I can point to several examples in this Order.
For instance, the Order brushes aside Sprint’s concern that the Commission did not make certain 
surveys available for independent review.  The Order notes that the surveys were only one piece of 
information that the Commission relied on when adopting its rules.  While the Commission may have the 
right to reject the Sprint petition, the better practice would have been to make such information available, 
by protective order if necessary, to protect any information that was truly confidential.  When our 
decision-making isn’t transparent, our decisions become suspect.
The Order also dismisses COMPTEL’s and ignores Carolina West’s concerns about whether the 
Commission provided sufficient notice for the adopted rules.  The Carolina West petition notes that the 
Commission failed to explain why it changed the proposed definition of “covered providers” to include 
affiliates. Indeed, the word affiliate does not even appear in the underlying Notice.  I expect the 
Commission to seek targeted comment during a proceeding to shore up any possible notice deficiencies 
instead of having to rely on “logical outgrowth” or other procedural defenses after the fact.  I tend to find 
the argument presented by Carolina West persuasive and carriers now captured by our rules should not be 
forced to pray that a waiver is granted, as is suggested.  I suspect that we could exclude such carriers 
without undermining our rural call completion efforts.
Moreover, I continue to object to the cursory cost-benefit analyses contained in Commission 
orders.  It may be the case that the benefits of these rules outweigh the costs, but it is hard to tell from the
few paragraphs cited in the underlying item.  To be sure, those paragraphs discussed important steps the 
Commission was taking to shrink the scope of the rules.  But they make no attempt to quantify the costs 
of the rules or to quantify and compare the benefits.  By a series of Executive Orders, agencies, including 
independent agencies like the FCC, are supposed to “propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned 
determination that its benefits justify its cost” and must “use the best available techniques to quantify 
anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible.”  This is not being done at the 
Commission.
I also disagree that the Commission should rely on the Paperwork Reduction Act process—i.e., 
something that occurs after I have been asked to vote—to sort out the costs and benefits.  I need to make 
decisions based on actual (not “to be determined”) estimates of costs and benefits.  Conducting the 
analysis after the fact also risks needless delay because the FCC may have to change its rules to address 
Office of Management and Budget concerns that the FCC has placed undue burdens on providers.
Finally, while not directly addressed in today’s Order, I am concerned by the trend of invoking 
ancillary authority to extend common carrier style regulation to an increasing array of providers and 
services.  The Transcom petition, while dismissed on procedural grounds, raises a host of issues that need 
to be considered fully.  Ancillary authority should be exercised with extreme caution (if at all) because it 
Federal Communications Commission FCC 14-175 
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arises, by definition, only in cases where Congress did not provide the FCC with express authority to 
regulate.  It should not be used to force other providers to abide by “industry practices”.
While I can only concur with this particular Order, I fully support the underlying goal of ensuring 
that all consumers have access to high-quality telephone service, and I hope we can continue to make 
progress to that end.