AT&T is using the Title II rules it hates to get millions in refunds

AT&T has spent a year railing about how awful it would be if the Federal Communications Commission applied common carrier rules to Internet service. It doesn't make sense "to take a regulatory framework developed for Ma Bell in the 1930s and make her great grandchildren, with technologies and options undreamed of eighty years ago, live under it," the company said in February just after the FCC voted to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Yet in an area where the Title II rules already apply (telephone service), AT&T now stands to get millions in refunds for network connection charges precisely because of the same rules that ban unjust and unreasonable charges for telecommunications services.

The case hinges on the same "unjust and unreasonable" standard that's now being applied to broadband, and it shows that Title II can be a huge boon to companies like AT&T. The FCC pointed to its Title II authority when it ruled in AT&T's favor recently. The company had complained that Great Lakes Comnet (GLC) and Westphalia Telephone Company (WTC) of Michigan "billed AT&T for interstate access services under an unlawful tariff." "We agree with AT&T," the FCC wrote. "We find that GLC violated the Commission’s Rules governing competitive local exchange carrier tariffs for interstate access services, and that the tariff therefore is unlawful. We also grant AT&T’s claim in Count III that WTC unlawfully billed for services prior to May 2013 that GLC provided." The FCC will rule next on how much money AT&T should get because of this overcharging. AT&T sought a refund of $12 million and is trying to avoid paying another $4.3 million Westphalia and Great Lakes claim they are owed.