COMMISSION In the Matter of the Pricing ) Proceeding for Interconnection, )DOCKET NO. UT-960369 Unbundled Elements, Transport and ) Termination, and Resale ) -----------------------------------) ) In the Matter of the Pricing ) Proceeding for Interconnection, )DOCKET NO. UT-960370 Unbundled Elements, Transport and ) Termination, and Resale for ) U S WEST COMMUNICATIONS, INC. ) -----------------------------------) ) In the Matter of the Pricing ) Proceeding for Interconnection, )DOCKET NO. UT-960371 Unbundled Elements, Transport and ) Termination, and Resale for ) VOLUME 8 GTE NORTHWEST INCORPORATED ) Pages 192 - 208 -----------------------------------) A pre-hearing conference in the above matter was held at 1:35 p.m. on July 7, 1997, at 1300 South Evergreen Park Drive Southwest, Olympia, Washington before Administrative Law Judge TERRENCE STAPLETON. The parties were present as follows: GTE NORTHWEST INCORPORATED by RICHARD E. POTTER, Associate General Counsel, 1800 41st Street, (5LE) Everett, Washington 98201 and JOHN WILLIAMS, MARK AUSTRIAN, and BRIAN FARLEY, Attorneys at Law, 3050 K Street NW, Suite 400, Washington D.C.. Cheryl Macdonald, CSR Court Reporter APPEARANCES (Cont'd.) SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L.P., by CAROL MATCHETT, Attorney at Law, 1850 Gateway Drive, Seventh Floor, San Mateo, California 94404-2467. U S WEST COMMUNICATIONS, INC., by LISA ANDERL, Attorney at Law, 1600 Bell Plaza, Room 3206, Seattle, Washington 98191 and JOHN M. DEVANEY, Attorney at Law, 607 14th Street NW, Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20005-2011. AT&T COMMUNICATIONS, by DANIEL WAGGONER, (via bridge) Attorney at Law, 2600 Century Square, 1501 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98101. MCI COMMUNICATIONS and MCImetro, by BROOKS HARLOW, Attorney at Law, 4400 Two Union Square, 601 Union Street, Seattle, Washington 98101 and ROBERT W. NICHOLS, Attorney at Law, 2600 Broadway, Suite 200, Boulder, Colorado 80302. TCG SEATTLE, by GREGORY J. KOPTA, (via bridge), Attorney at Law, 2600 Century Square, 1501 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98101. FRONTIER TELEMANAGEMENT and SHARED COMMUNICATION SERVICE, INC., by SARA SIEGLER MILLER, (via bridge), Attorney at Law, 2000 NE 42nd, Suite 154, Portland, Oregon 97213. UNITED TELEPHONE COMPANY OF THE NORTHWEST and SPRINT CORPORATION, by SETH LUBIN, General Counsel/Secretary, 902 Wasco Street, Hood River, Oregon 97031. WITA, by RICHARD A. FINNIGAN, Attorney at Law, 2405 Evergreen Park Drive SW, Suite B-1, Olympia, Washington 98501. TRACER, by ARTHUR A. BUTLER, Attorney at Law, 601 Union Street, Suite 5450, Seattle, Washington 98101-2327. THE WASHINGTON UTILITIES AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION STAFF, by GREGORY J. TRAUTMAN and SHANNON E. SMITH, Assistant Attorneys General, 1400 South Evergreen Park Drive Southwest, Olympia, Washington 98504-0128. APPEARANCES (Cont'd.) FOR THE PUBLIC, SIMON FFITCH and ROBERT MANIFOLD, (via bridge), Assistant Attorneys General, 900 Fourth Avenue, Suite 2000, Seattle, Washington 98164. NEXTLINK, by DEBORAH JAKES (via bridge). P R O C E E D I N G S JUDGE STAPLETON: This hearing will please come to order. This is a pre-hearing conference in the matter of the pricing proceeding for interconnection, unbundled elements, transport and termination, and resale, docket No. UT-960369, 960370, 960371. We're convened at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, July 7, 1997 in the Commission's hearing room in Olympia before Administrative Law Judge Terrence Stapleton. I will begin by taking the appearances of the parties. MR. WILSON: Are the callers on the bridge still on line? UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I had to dial back in but -- UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I don't think we're back in. JUDGE STAPLETON: For Commission staff, please. MS. SMITH: Shannon Smith, assistant attorney general and Gregory Trautman, assistant attorney general for Commission staff. JUDGE STAPLETON: Is Electric Lightwave present? MS. JAKES: NeXTLink is present. JUDGE STAPLETON: For AT&T. MR. WAGGONER: Daniel Waggoner, Davis Wright Tremaine. JUDGE STAPLETON: For TRACER. MR. BUTLER: Arthur A. Butler, Ater, Wynne, Hewitt, Dodson and Skerritt. JUDGE STAPLETON: TCG? NeXTLink? Frontier Telemanagement. MS. JAKES: NeXTLink. JUDGE STAPLETON: NextLink. Is NeXTLink being represented here today? MS. JAKES: Yes, Deborah Jakes for NeXtLink. JUDGE STAPLETON: Thank you. Frontier Telemanagement. MS. MILLER: Yes. This is Sara Siegler Miller for Frontier Telemanagement. In addition, I am representing Shared Communications Services for the purposes of the hearing. JUDGE STAPLETON: Thank you. MCI, MCImetro. MR. NICHOLS: Yes. Robert Nichols, Nichols and Hecht, and Brooks Harlow, Miller Nash for MCI and MCImetro. JUDGE STAPLETON: WorldCom, TRA? Sprint Communications? MS. MATCHETT: Carol Matchett. JUDGE STAPLETON: United Telephone of the Northwest. MR. LUBIN: Seth Lubin. JUDGE STAPLETON: U S WEST. MS. ANDERL: Lisa Anderl and John Devaney for U S WEST. JUDGE STAPLETON: WITA. MR. FINNIGAN: Rick Finnigan. JUDGE STAPLETON: MFS. I'm sorry, I guess parties received a note that MFS was not participating in these hearings. Public counsel. MR. FFITCH: Simon ffitch, assistant attorney general and on the telephone, perhaps, Rob Manifold. MR. MANIFOLD: I'm back on. I got cut off. I dialed back in. JUDGE STAPLETON: GTE Northwest. MR. POTTER: Richard E. Potter for GTE Northwest, and we also have our outside counsel here. MR. AUSTRIAN: Mark Austrian, law firm of Collier, Shannon, Rill and Scott. John Williams of the law firm of Collier, Shannon, Rill and Scott. JUDGE STAPLETON: Okay, thank you. I have a series of more or less process items to cover with you all today, but before I get into that, does anyone have any questions about the pre-hearing conference notice that went out on June 23 scheduling today and tomorrow at 8 a.m. for prehearing conference or does anyone have any questions generally about how this hearing will proceed? UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Your Honor, this is Charles (inaudible) with Sprint PCS, Sprint Spectrum. I wanted to let you know that I was on the line. We have moved for intervention but our intervention has not been granted at this point. I wanted to let you know I was here, though. JUDGE STAPLETON: Your intervention has been denied by operation of law, the Commission having failed to act on your petition within 20 days. However, if you do want to continue to monitor the hearings, you are certainly free to do that. UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you, Your Honor. JUDGE STAPLETON: Does anyone else have any procedural questions or process questions that they would like to raise about the process or the hearing before I launch into a series of items? Okay. With regard to testimony, I think I will go through -- we'll take a break here in a few minutes, and I will bring in the testimony for the first witnesses to be sworn in here tomorrow and Wednesday and we will -- I will indicate how testimony will be, marked and how I expect errata sheets regarding testimony to be introduced, and also the distribution and marking of exhibits that will be brought in on cross-examination of the witnesses. MS. MILLER: Excuse me, Your Honor. This is Sara Siegler Miller for Frontier Telemanagement. I apologize, but I keep getting dumped off and I didn't hear the beginning of your statement. MR. BERG: What we have are several of the outside parties calling in. My understanding is the dial tone that we heard was an indication that all parties had been dropped. When that happens we're essentially put in the same status as any of the other outside parties at which point in time I turned this line off, turned it back on and dial in just as if this hearing was an outside party. MR. MANIFOLD: Hello, hello. I'm back. JUDGE STAPLETON: If we continue to have problems with the line going down we will simply have to turn off the line so we can finish here in the room. UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Okay. JUDGE STAPLETON: The Commission has retained, as you know, a technical expert, David Gable, to assist it with analyzing the cost models. It appears that Mr. Gable is having some problem getting the models to actually work, and will at some point in time perhaps need to speak directly to the parties who are sponsoring the cost models for their assistance in actually running the models. So I want to know at this point in time if anyone has any problems with Mr. Gable contacting the parties for -- strictly for technical assistance for the mechanical running of the models. These people, is my understanding, would not be actual witnesses in the case, but the company's internal technical people who can assist him with the actual running of the model. Does anyone have any comment on that? MR. POTTER: Richard Potter. Just make a comment. We have our witness Mr. Tucek and Craig Omoto from our Everett office down here for the hearing, and so they may be able to help him directly and if not they can get him on the phone with the people who could. MS. ANDERL: U S WEST would just note that some of its witnesses may also be the people Dr. Gable would need to contact, but we don't have any objection to him doing that for technical assistance with all of the models for all of the parties. JUDGE STAPLETON: Thank you. Anyone else? I have just gotten late the parties' time estimates for this proceeding, and so I have not had a chance to go into them at any length and gauge where we're going to be based upon the schedule that the parties agreed to in terms of the number of hours that will be committed to each model and in order to accommodate all the witnesses in the case. As I indicated earlier in a notice of pre-hearing conference, it may be necessary to set limits on a party's cross-examination. At this point in time I don't know whether that will be necessary and it may not be that it's necessary early on, but I will not allow the hearings to get late into the second week and then for certain the time for parties who have not yet had a chance to cross-examine witnesses and detract from their time without trying to share that burden equally from the outset. So I will know more tomorrow morning when we reconvene here for the adventure hearings. As the pre-hearing conference notice indicated, I expect everyone here to be early at 8 a.m. ready to distribute whatever exhibits they intend to bring up during the cross of the witnesses who are the first round of witnesses to be sworn in here in this proceeding. I will mark those witnesses' testimony individually and then I will have you distribute exhibits that you wish to bring in during the cross of that witness. We'll mark those so that I can keep such exhibits close to the prefiled testimony and exhibits of the witnesses who are appearing. And I guess finally the only other issue I had to raise with you was a post hearing memorandum. As you know, the Commission's rules limit briefs to 60 pages. Given the amount of the records submitted to date I'm wondering if foreshortening that by a factor of three or four is appropriate, and given the looks I'm getting I assume it's not, so we will leave that at 60 pages. However, I would like to ask for staff, public counsel, U S WEST, GTE, someone from AT&T, MCI, and United/Sprint, those six parties at least, to get together and, by the end of the hearings, to have circulated and presented to the bench a framework for the way issues will appear in the post hearing briefs. Any other parties who wants to have input into that can contact any one of those six representatives and express your concerns or your desires. Having an agreed upon format does not mean that any issue that's in there is an issue before the Commission or that the parties agree that any such issue is an issue, but anyone who believes they should address a particular issue will all do it in the same order so that the briefs are commonly constructed and so the Commission can follow the parties' arguments. MS. ANDERL: Your Honor, can you list again the parties who are designated to work on that? JUDGE STAPLETON: Staff, public counsel, U S WEST, GTE, someone from AT&T, MCI, and someone designated by United and Sprint, so there will be six people. I had reserved time this afternoon in case I wanted to hear or the Commission wanted to hear any motions or arguments that needed to be presented. Obviously none came in. I've covered all of the procedural things I wanted to get covered with you. And I am wondering if at this point in time anyone has anything they want to raise while we're here and on the record. MR. AUSTRIAN: Yes, Mr. Williams does, for GTE. MR. WILLIAMS: Will the witnesses be permitted to make a brief opening statement? JUDGE STAPLETON: No, they will not. We will conduct this proceeding as we do all formal adjudications here. The prefiled testimony will stand for the witness's position on issues, and we will begin immediately with cross-examination. MR. WILLIAMS: Fine. And secondly, with respect to cross-examination exhibits, I'm a little concerned that there are -- we have some exhibits that I know we will want to use and some exhibits that we probably won't need to use depending upon the testimony of the particular witness. Do you want all cross-examination exhibits marked even though there is a likelihood that they will not be used? JUDGE STAPLETON: Yes, I would. Like them distributed as soon as I mark the testimony for the witness. We'll distribute those, we'll mark those, and whether or not they're moved by the party presenting that exhibit will be entirely up to the party. But at least it will give me a coherent record with the testimony and the exhibits tied together in a sequential string of exhibit numbers. MR. WILLIAMS: Fine. That's all we had. MR. LUBIN: Seth Lubin with United Telephone. I had a scheduling question. There are a variety of witnesses in the rebuttal testimony that respond to different models, and the opportunity to cross them on a particular model, will that be on the day that that's presented and will that witness be available for each model that they critiqued? JUDGE STAPLETON: Well, I'm certainly open to whatever the parties want to do there. If it makes more sense or the parties feel that they would prefer to have their witnesses follow with all rebuttal witnesses for that model on the day that we complete the cross and the direct witnesses on the model, then that's fine with me. If you have scheduling conflicts with your witnesses and only want to bring them here one time and cross them with their questions on whatever models they're addressing in their rebuttal testimony, I'm willing to do that as well. MR. FINNIGAN: That would be the preference for WITA's reference on their reply testimony that they be crossed once on both models that they talked about. MR. LUBIN: So we can assume that when they appeared on Mr. Waggoner's letter that that's the opportunity for cross? JUDGE STAPLETON: If you have a rebuttal witness who appears on that letter following the presentation of the direct case on Hatfield, and you want that witness to come back whenever the completion of the direct case on the BCPM or the RLCAP or the GTE TSLRIC, you can bring that witness back, and we'll do all rebuttal of witnesses at that time on that particular model. If it makes more sense to you in the scheduling of your witness to put him on one time and pose whatever questions you want to him at that point in time, we'll do it that way as well. MS. ANDERL: Your Honor, I have kind of a procedural question as to how we would handle these cross exhibits. We may propose, and I think we will propose, that some of the data request responses prepared by MCI be identified as exhibits and admitted, and I don't know if MCI is going to object to that or not, but there may be a little difficulty with that since MCI has not sponsored any witnesses except Dr. Cornell independently, and the data request responses aren't particularly tied to Dr. Cornell's testimony, and were not prepared by her, and I guess I would like to have those documents in the record for cross pertaining to Hatfield in general, and I wondered if it was appropriate to discuss now whether we could offer those subject to any objections, of course, that MCI might want to make through their first witness who will be Dr. Cornell. JUDGE STAPLETON: Mr. Nichols, Mr. Harlow. MR. NICHOLS: Well, in fact we have Mr. DeTirro as an MCI witness. His testimony is focused only on the avoided cost matters, and so if there are data requests that have to do with that topic it would make sense to use him for that. MS. ANDERL: That's right, I'm sorry, and I wasn't talking about that. I did kind of forget about Mr. DeTirro. MR. NICHOLS: Your Honor, I would suggest that we get together with counsel from U S WEST, and if we don't object to the admittance of the document on other grounds we will not object that it be done through Dr. Cornell or anyone else that's representing MCI and AT&T. JUDGE STAPLETON: Why don't you do that and then you can let me know when it comes time for the introduction of those if there's a problem. MS. ANDERL: Thank you. JUDGE STAPLETON: Anything else? Anyone else? MR. FFITCH: Your Honor, if we could just check -- since our lead counsel is on the phone if we could just check to see if they are on, see if they have any comment on the parties on the phone. JUDGE STAPLETON: Does anyone who is hopefully on the bridge line have any questions to raise about the procedure at the hearing beginning tomorrow or a process for presenting cross and crossing witnesses? MR. MANIFOLD: This is Rob Manifold. I'm back on and I do not have any questions. MR. KOPTA: This is Greg Kopta. I unfortunately keep getting cut off and back on so I've missed a lot of what happened, but doesn't sound like there's anything that's raised any issues that we would have. JUDGE STAPLETON: All right. Very good. If there's nothing else, we'll stand in recess until 8:00 tomorrow morning. Thank you very much. (Hearing adjourned at 1:55 p.m.)