^®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week

A Data Quality Petition on the FCC's Subscriber Line Charge
Teletruth, which describes itself as a "national, independent, customer alliance dedicated to fixing the problems in telecommunications," has filed a Data Quality petition at the FCC requesting that the Commission either "prove the need for the Federal Line Charge" that is applied to residential and business phone bills or "suspend current charges...until a full accounting to the public is made."

The purpose of the Data Quality Act is to seek correction of specific information that does not meet OMB and agency standards. Notwithstanding any issues regarding the appropriateness of the requested remedy, the Teletruth petition does raise issues regarding FCC data that deserve serious consideration.

Among the issues alleged by Teletruth are that the FCC selectively ignored their own data, relied on information submitted by third-parties which did not meet data quality standards, and used data that was "not reliable, not accurate or complete and could not be reproduced."

The FCC makes extensive use of data and models, both internally generated and provided by third-parties. Information disseminated by the Commission has a very substantial economic impact. Thus, it seems likely that, irrespective of the decisions the FCC makes with regard to the Teletruth petition, there will be increased scrutiny focused on the quality of the data and models used by the FCC.