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If you need the complete document, download the WordPerfect version or Adobe Acrobat version, if available. ***************************************************************** Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of ) ) GTE Telecom Incorporated) ) Application for Authority Pursuant to ) Section 214 of the Communications Act ) to provide International Switched Resale, ) ITC-95-443 Facilities-Based Switched, Private Line ) ITC-96-313 Voice and Data Services and ) ITC-96-314 Resold Non-interconnected Private Lines ) to Venezuela and the Dominican Republic ) ) GTE Mobilnet Incorporated, on Behalf of ) Itself and Certain of its Corporate Affiliates ) ) Application for Authorization Pursuant to ) Section 214 of the Communications to ) ITC-95-561 Operate as an International Resale Carrier ) for International Switched Voice Services to ) the Dominican Republic and Venezuela ) ORDER, AUTHORIZATION AND CERTIFICATE Adopted: February 20, 1998 Released: Febuary 23, 1998 By the Chief, Telecommunications Division I. Introduction 1. In this order, we grant GTE Telecom Incorporated (GTE Telecom) authority under Section 214 of the Communications Act to provide facilities-based and resold international switched and non-interconnected private line services to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. We also grant the joint request filed by GTE Mobilnet Incorporated and certain of its corporate affiliates and partnerships (collectively, GTE Mobilnet) to resell international switched service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. II. Background 2. GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilnet (applicants) are both wholly-owned by GTE Corporation (GTE), a New York corporation whose operating companies comprise the largest affiliation of independent local exchange carriers (LECs) in the United States. The applicants are affiliated through GTE with Compania Dominicana de Telefonos, C. Por A. (Codetel) in the Dominican Republic, and Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV) in Venezuela. 3. The applicants have filed multiple applications to provide international services originating in the United States and terminating at various overseas points. The Bureau has previously granted some of their requests and deferred others. GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilenet each sought authority to resell the international switched services of unaffiliated U.S. carriers to all foreign points. GTE Telecom also sought authority to provide facilities-based private line services to international points excluding the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. AT&T and Worldcom each filed a Petition to Deny in Part GTE Telecom's application; Domtel and Sprint filed comments. AT&T also filed a Petition to Deny in Part GTE Mobilenet's application. 4. The International Bureau (Bureau) granted the applicants' respective Section 214 applications, but excluded authorization to resell switched service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. The Bureau found that the applicants' requests to offer this service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela raised public interest issues relating to the settlements process that could not be resolved on the record. The Bureau therefore deferred a decision with respect to the applicants' requests for authorization on the Dominican Republic and Venezuela routes to permit the parties an additional opportunity to address these outstanding issues. We address the issues that the Bureau deferred in the GTE Telecom Order and GTE Mobilnet Order in this order. 5. GTE Telecom also filed applications to provide facilities-based switched and private line service as well as resold non-interconnected private line service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. AT&T filed comments on GTE Telecom's application to provide service to the Dominican Republic. III. Discussion A. Applications to Resell International Switched Services 6. The Bureau deferred action on the applicants' requests for authorization to resell international switched service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela in part because significant issues were raised in the record in this proceeding that required further information. Since the GTE Telecom Order and the GTE Mobilnet Order, there have been significant improvements in accounting rates offered to U.S. carriers by Codetel and CANTV and improvements in the competitive environment in the Dominican Republic that alleviate many of these concerns. In addition, since those two orders were adopted, the Commission adopted the Foreign Participation Order, which clarifies the Commission's policies regarding other issues raised by the opposing parties. 7. In the Foreign Participation Order, the Commission recently adopted a presumption in favor of granting Section 214 applications of applicants from WTO member countries to serve markets in which the applicant has a foreign affiliate. Under the new policy, competition concerns related to an applicant's affiliation with a foreign carrier from a WTO member country will warrant denial of an applicant's request to serve that country only under exceptional circumstances where grant of the authorization would pose a very high risk to competition in the U.S. international services market. The Commission continues to consider other public interest factors, such as national security, law enforcement, foreign policy and trade issues relevant to granting or denying an application by a foreign-affiliated carrier. 8. The majority of the pleadings and ex parte submissions filed in this proceeding predate the Commission's Foreign Participation Order, which modified our public interest analysis of applications for international Section 214 authorization. The Commission stated specifically in the Foreign Participation Order that it would apply the new rules to all applications pending before the Commission in any procedural posture at the time they become effective. It is well established that the Commission may apply new rules and policies to pending matters. Accordingly, we will evaluate GTE Telecom's and GTE Mobilenet's applications under the standard adopted in the Foreign Participation Order. 9. Although we are concerned with the allegations of Codetel's abuse of market power in the Dominican Republic, we do not find on this record that granting GTE Telecom's application would pose a very high risk to competition in the U.S. market. We also do not find, on this record, that the conditions that Tricom advocates are necessary to prevent harm to competition in the U.S. market. 10. In order to deny an application or impose additional conditions on the authorization of a foreign-affiliated applicant such as GTE Telecom, the Commission must find that a risk to competition in the U.S. international services market warrants such action. In such a case, the Commission must find that its safeguards would be ineffective in preventing the foreign carrier affiliate from engaging in anticompetitive conduct against unaffiliated U.S. carriers and that, as a result, the foreign carrier would be able to raise the costs of these carriers to the degree that U.S. consumers would be injured. The Commission found that its regulatory safeguards, many of which it adopted in the Foreign Participation Order, would be adequate to detect and deter anticompetitive conduct "in virtually all circumstances." 11. Tricom, which provides international, domestic long distance, and local exchange service in the Dominican Republic, requests that the Commission impose a variety of conditions on GTE Telecom's grant of authority. Tricom argues that these conditions are necessary to resolve its disputes with Codetel and guard against future anticompetitive conduct. Tricom also asks that we impose on GTE Telecom the same conditions we imposed in the Telmex/Sprint Order. Tricom alleges that Codetel has failed to provide interconnection facilities in accord with negotiated agreements. It also alleges that Codetel has discriminated against Tricom in favor of another Dominican Carrier allegedly because of Tricom's refusal to agree not to compete against Codetel in the local exchange market. In addition, Tricom has detailed numerous ongoing legal disputes with Codetel that it argues are evidence of Codetel's abuse of market power. 12. We find that some of the conduct alleged by Tricom, specifically, discriminatory access charges and unreasonable delays in provisioning of circuits (including failures to install facilities under negotiated agreements), may have an adverse impact on U.S. consumers and the U.S. market for international services. To the extent Codetel succeeds in raising the costs of its competitors in the Dominican international services market, these competitors may choose to exit the market, thereby preserving Codetel's market power in the Dominican Republic. As a result, there would be significantly less pressure to lower accounting rates for international service from the United States. 13. In deferring GTE Telecom's and GTE Mobilnet's applications to resell international switched services to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the Bureau identified three ways in which granting the requested authority could exacerbate the U.S. net settlements deficit with those countries, and therefore could be contrary to the public interest. First, in light of the fact that GTE controls both Codetel in the Dominican Republic and CANTV in Venezuela, the Bureau expressed concern that GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilnet could use the market power of Codetel and CANTV "to manipulate the settlements process and [their] . . . prices to U.S. consumers on these affiliated routes in a manner that increases U.S. carrier outpayments to Codetel and CANTV." Second, the Bureau noted that CANTV had engaged in discriminatory treatment of U.S. carriers in accounting rate negotiations, "by refusing to offer the same terms and conditions to all U.S. carriers in violation of our International Settlements Policy." Finally, the Bureau noted that Codetel appeared to have used its settlement rate negotiations with U.S. carriers and engaged in other discriminatory behavior to thwart competition in the Dominican Republic, and that such activity "undermine[s] the Commission's efforts to encourage competition in foreign markets as a vehicle to drive accounting rates toward cost." 14. Since the GTE Telecom Order and the GTE Mobilnet Order were adopted, we find that there have been significant developments that alleviate the concerns expressed in those orders. Most significantly, U.S. carriers have been able to negotiate significant settlement rate reductions both with Codetel in the Dominican Republic and CANTV in Venezuela. U.S. carriers have recently filed settlement rate arrangements with Codetel and CANTV that will reduce their respective settlement rates from the already reduced current rate of $.43 to the $.19 benchmark by the applicable target date of January 1, 2001. GTE informs us that these arrangements will be available to all U.S. facilities-based carriers. These settlement rate reductions will offer substantial savings to U.S. consumers and reduce incentives for Codetel and CANTV to engage in a traffic distortion scenario. We therefore find it unlikely that the applicants will "manipulate the settlements process and prices to increase settlements payments." Also, in light of assurances that reduced settlement rates will be made available to all facilities-based carriers, absent credible evidence to the contrary, we are no longer concerned that Codetel and CANTV will discriminate among U.S. carriers in negotiating settlement arrangements. 15. We also note that GTE has recently filed an interconnection agreement, entered into between Tricom and Codetel, that appears to resolve the most significant issues that Tricom's proposed conditions are intended to address. We are therefore less concerned that Codetel will block competition in the Dominican Republic. Tricom expresses concern that certain aspects of this agreement may be renegotiated in the future. It asks that we condition GTE Telecom's authorization on Codetel charging Dominican carriers non-recurring and per-minute access charges that are "based in cost and cost justified" and which do not "contain any element of subsidy." Tricom also requests, in relevant part, that we condition GTE Telecom's authorization on Codetel's continued compliance with the January 2 agreement. Tricom has not demonstrated a risk to competition in the U.S. international services market that would justify unilateral imposition of such a condition. We find that the issues raised by Tricom that affect the U.S. international services market are largely resolved by the January 2 agreement. We also find that Codetel's conduct in the Dominican market is properly the subject of Dominican law and regulation. Indeed, GTE notes that all pending arbitrations between Tricom and Codetel have been resolved. Finally, we find that existing Commission rules and safeguards, such as the quarterly circuit status reports, discussed below, are sufficient to ensure that GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilnet are unable to harm competition in the U.S. market for international services. Nevertheless, we reserve the right to take action in the event that competition in the U.S. market for international services is adversely impacted by future actions by Codetel that restrict Tricom's ability to compete. 16. We also do not find it in the public interest to impose on GTE Telecom the same conditions that were agreed to in the Telmex/Sprint Proceeding by Telmex/Sprint, as urged by Tricom. Tricom offers little rationale for applying these detailed conditions to GTE Telecom. The conditions it advocates were voluntarily agreed to by Sprint and Telmex prior to the grant of resale authorization to their U.S. joint venture company. We do not find that imposing such conditions unilaterally on GTE Telecom in the wake of the significant progress in reducing settlement rates and the new terms and conditions that Codetel agreed to with Tricom would serve the public interest. Furthermore, the terms voluntarily agreed to in the Sprint/Telmex proceeding took place in a regulatory environment in which the authorization in question was subject to an effective competitive opportunities analysis. No such analysis is applicable here, either under the rules adopted in the Foreign Carrier Entry Order, or under the revised rules adopted in the Foreign Participation Order. We therefore decline to impose the conditions advocated by Tricom. 17. Tricom's U.S. affiliate, Domtel, also requests that GTE Telecom be allowed to resell the services of U.S. carriers that are dominant only when "the U.S. carrier makes the same volume and terms and conditions of resale available to all other resellers." In addition, Domtel requests that "GTE Telecom's resale be required to adhere in all respects to proportionate return . . . . [i.e., that GTE Telecom] accept only . . . [its] proportionate share of return traffic." We decline to adopt these conditions. U.S. facilities-based carriers are already bound to offer resale service on nondiscriminatory terms and conditions. Further, to the extent GTE Telecom operates as a switched reseller on a given route, it would not be entitled to receive return traffic under the Commission's proportionate return policy. 18. We also find no merit to AT&T's argument that granting GTE Telecom resale authority to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela would provide it with the incentive and the ability to price retail services below cost and earn substantial profits solely from the settlements payments paid to Codetel from the underlying facilities-based carrier. We note that similar arguments were raised by AT&T in the Foreign Participation and Benchmarks proceedings. The behavior AT&T describes is a predatory price squeeze. The Commission found in the Benchmarks Order that there is a risk of predatory price squeeze behavior when a foreign-affiliated carrier provides U.S. facilities- based service to a foreign market in which the affiliated foreign carrier provides the terminating service and collects above-cost settlement rates. The Commission therefore adopted a benchmark settlement rate condition for carriers seeking authorization to provide facilities-based service to an affiliated foreign market. In the Foreign Participation Order, however, the Commission declined to apply a benchmark settlement rate condition for switched resellers' provision of service to affiliated markets. The Commission found that a switched reseller has substantially less incentive to engage in a price squeeze strategy than a facilities-based carrier and that it is easier to detect a predatory price squeeze in a switched resale context than in a facilities-based context. We therefore find no basis for denial of GTE Telecom's application in the scenario detailed in AT&T's opposition to these applications. For the same reasons, we deny AT&T's proposal to condition GTE Mobilnet's authorization on Codetel and CANTV maintaining accounting rates at or below the applicable benchmark. 19. Nevertheless, in the Foreign Participation Order, the Commission adopted a quarterly traffic and revenue reporting requirement for all switched resellers providing service to markets where an affiliated foreign carrier has sufficient market power to affect competition adversely in the U.S. market and collects settlement revenue from U.S. carriers. The purpose of this requirement is to enable the Commission to detect whether a foreign-affiliated reseller is engaging in a traffic distortion scheme on affiliated routes. Prior to the Foreign Participation Order's adoption, GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilnet had voluntarily committed to make available to the Commission, on a quarterly basis, revenues and traffic volumes for their resold, switched service on the Dominican and Venezuelan routes. If GTE Telecom or GTE Mobilnet were to engage in anticompetitive behavior on these two routes -- a possibility which we consider to be remote, based on the record before us -- the quarterly traffic and revenue reports will help to reveal such behavior. 20. In light of the above analysis, we do not find that GTE Telecom's and GTE Mobilnet's affiliations with Codetel and CANTV pose risks to competition in the U.S. international services market that would justify imposing conditions or denying authorization to serve the Dominican Republic and Venezuela via switched resale. We also find that there are no other relevant public interest factors that would lead us to deny the applicants' authorizations. The Executive Branch has not raised any national security, law enforcement, foreign policy or trade concerns. We therefore grant GTE Telecom's and GTE Mobilnet's authorizations to serve the Dominican Republic and Venezuela through resale of an unaffiliated facilities-based carrier's switched services. B. Facilities-based and Resold Non-interconnected Private Line Service 21. GTE Telecom also seeks authority to provide facilities-based switched and private line service and to resell non-interconnected private lines for service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. AT&T asks us to require that Codetel agree to settle U.S. traffic at rates at or below the benchmark settlement rate. 22. Applying the public interest analysis adopted in the Foreign Participation Order, we do not find, on this record, evidence that would lead us to conclude that granting GTE authority to provide facilities-based or resold non-interconnected private line service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela would pose a very high risk to competition in the U.S. market. We also find that there are no other relevant public interest factors that would lead us to deny GTE Telecom's authorizations. The Executive Branch has not raised any national security, law enforcement, foreign policy or trade concerns. In addition, we find that AT&T's request for settlement rate conditions on GTE Telecom's provision of service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela has been addressed in the Benchmarks Order. The condition adopted in the Benchmarks Order for facilities-based service applies for service to those countries. As we concluded in the Benchmarks Order, we see no reason to impose such a condition on the resale of non-interconnected private lines. 23. In the Benchmarks Order, the Commission established benchmarks that will govern the international settlement rates U.S. carriers pay foreign carriers. The Commission also adopted a benchmark settlement rate condition, effective January 1, 1998, for authorizations to provide facilities-based switched or private line services to destination markets where the authorized carrier is affiliated with a foreign carrier. Pursuant to the Benchmarks Order, we condition any authorization to provide facilities-based switched or private line service to an affiliated market on the affiliated foreign carrier having in effect a settlement rate with U.S. international carriers on the U.S.-affiliated market route that is at or below the relevant benchmark settlement rate adopted in that order. The Benchmarks Order requires U.S. carriers to negotiate a settlement rate of U.S. $0.19 per minute with carriers in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Codetel and CANTV both have settlement rates with U.S. carriers currently at $0.43, much higher than the benchmark. Thus, we authorize GTE Telecom to begin to provide facilities-based service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela only when Codetel's and CANTV's respective settlement rates are at or below $0.19. C. Regulatory Treatment 24. Our regulations governing the U.S. international services market traditionally have distinguished between "dominant" and "non-dominant" carriers. We have classified carriers operating in the U.S. market, whether U.S.- or foreign-owned, as dominant in their provision of U.S. international services on particular routes in two circumstances: (1) where we have determined that a U.S. carrier can exercise market power on the U.S. end of a particular route; and (2) where we have determined that a foreign carrier has market power on the foreign end of a particular route that can adversely affect competition in the U.S. international services market. Carriers regulated as dominant on a particular route due to an affiliation with a carrier possessing market power on the foreign end of that route are subject to specific safeguards set forth in our rules. These safeguards differ significantly from the safeguards the Commission traditionally has imposed on U.S. carriers regulated as dominant due to market power on the U.S. end of a route. 25. As an incumbent, independent LEC, GTE is classified as non-dominant in the provision of international services unless we find that it warrants regulation as a dominant carrier on a particular U.S. international route due to an affiliation with a foreign carrier that has market power on the foreign end of the route. Even when regulated as non-dominant, however, GTE Telecom and GTE Mobilnet are subject to certain separation requirements in their provision of in-region, international services. 1. GTE Mobilnet 26. We grant here GTE Mobilnet's authorization to provide resold switched services on a non-dominant carrier basis. We do not find sufficient evidence that GTE Mobilnet could use the market power of CANTV or Codetel to give it an advantage in the U.S. market for international resold switched services. 27. Under Section 63.10(a)(4) of the Commission's rules, a U.S. international carrier that provides switched service on a particular U.S. international route solely through the resale of the switched services of a U.S. facilities-based carrier with which the reseller is not affiliated is presumptively non-dominant in its provision of switched services on that route -- "regardless of any foreign affiliations." The Commission has found that the resale of an unaffiliated U.S. facilities- based carrier's switched services "presents no substantial possibility of anticompetitive effects in the U.S. international service market, because the reseller's foreign affiliate is negotiating the terms and conditions of access to the destination market with an unaffiliated carrier on the U.S. end[.]" 28. We therefore find that GTE Mobilnet qualifies as non-dominant for the provision of international switched services to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela under the Commission's rules to the extent it resells the switched services of unaffiliated U.S. facilities-based carriers. Because GTE Mobilnet is affiliated with Codetel and CANTV, each of which we find possess sufficient market power to affect competition adversely in the U.S. market, we will require GTE Mobilnet to file quarterly reports of its switched resale traffic to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. 2. GTE Telecom 29. Under the Commission's regulatory framework, a facilities-based U.S. international carrier is presumptively regulated as dominant for the provision of switched or private line services on a particular route if it is affiliated with a foreign carrier that possesses market power in the destination market. Where the U.S. carrier is affiliated with a foreign carrier that is not a monopoly provider in the destination market and seeks to be regulated as non-dominant on that route, it bears the burden of demonstrating that its foreign affiliate lacks sufficient market power on the foreign end of the route to affect competition adversely in the U.S. market. These same presumptions apply in the provision of international private line service. 30. GTE Telecom does not seek to be regulated as a non-dominant carrier for the provision of facilities-based or resold private line service to either the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. Accordingly, GTE Telecom will be subject to the Commission's dominant carrier regulations for such service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, as set forth in the Commission's rules. 31. GTE Telecom does seek non-dominant status for its resale of switched services. The presumption of non-dominance for switched resale in the Commission's rules, however, does not apply where a resale carrier also provides switched services on affiliated route as a facilities-based carrier. GTE Telecom will therefore be subject to dominant carrier regulation in its provision of switched service to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela upon initiation of facilities-based services to each country. So long as GTE Telecom provides service solely through the resale of the switched services of a U.S. facilities-based carrier with which it is not affiliated, GTE Telecom will be regulated as non-dominant. We will require, however, that GTE Telecom, when providing service solely as a switched reseller, comply with the Commission's requirement to file quarterly reports of its switched resale services to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. 32. Domtel argues that GTE Telecom should not be granted switched resale authority as a non-dominant carrier. Domtel asserts that Codetel and CANTV are dominant carriers in their respective markets and have a history of discriminating against unaffiliated carriers. In addition, it states that two of the U.S. carriers whose services GTE Telecom proposes to resell "together dominate (80 percent) U.S. traffic to the foreign destination[.]" Under these circumstances, argues Domtel, GTE Telecom "has the ability to interfere with the underlying operating arrangements of the resold U.S. carrier and [GTE Telecom's] . . . foreign affiliate[.]" 33. We find that Domtel does not provide sufficient evidence to overcome the presumption of non-dominance for switched resellers. Although Codetel and CANTV may have the ability to interfere with the underlying operating arrangements of the resold U.S. facilities-based carrier, it is far from clear that these carriers have the incentive to do so. The fact that the U.S. carriers whose service GTE Telecom proposes to resell constitute 80% of the U.S. market offer little incentive for Codetel and CANTV to discriminate in favor of GTE Telecom, because in order to provide preferential treatment to GTE Telecom, Codetel and CANTV would have to offer preferential treatment to the rest of the traffic carried by the underlying facilities-based carriers, which constitutes 80% of all traffic exchanged with the United States. In light of the fact that GTE Telecom's traffic is likely, at least in the short term, to constitute only a small fraction of the traffic between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, GTE Telecom's facilities-based competitors are far more likely to benefit from such a scheme than GTE Telecom itself. 34. We therefore find that there is insufficient evidence in the record to persuade us that Codetel or CANTV are likely to use their market power in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, respectively, to discriminate in favor of GTE Telecom or GTE Mobilnet in their resale of switched services of unaffiliated facilities-based carriers to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. GTE Telecom's provision of service as a switched reseller will therefore be regulated as non-dominant until such time as it provides facilities-based service. IV. Conclusion 35. We find that a grant of GTE Telecom's and GTE Mobilnet's above-captioned applications to provide service between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela will serve the public convenience and necessity under Section 214 of the Act by increasing competition in international services, expanding the range of new and innovative services, and allowing for the more efficient use of existing international telecommunications facilities. We also find that GTE Mobilnet qualifies for non-dominant carrier regulation to provide resold switched services of unaffiliated facilities-based carriers. We will regulate GTE Telecom as dominant for the provision of all authorized services to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, except to the extent that it provides switched services on those routes solely through the resale of unaffiliated carriers' switched services. V. Ordering Clauses 36. Upon consideration of the application and in view of the foregoing, IT IS HEREBY CERTIFIED that the present and future public convenience and necessity require the provision of facilities-based and resold international switched and non-interconnected private line services between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela by GTE Telecom, Inc. and resold international switched services between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela by GTE Mobilnet, Inc. subject to the conditions set forth below. 37. Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that File No. ITC 95-443 IS GRANTED and GTE Telecom, Inc. is authorized to provide resold international switched services between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela; 38. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that File No. ITC 95-561 IS GRANTED and GTE Mobilnet, Inc. is authorized to provide resold international switched services between the United States and the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. 39. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that File No. ITC 96-313 IS GRANTED and GTE Telecom, Inc. is authorized to: 1) resell international private lines not interconnected to the public switched network; 2) provide facilities based service between the United States and Venezuela. 40. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that File No. ITC 96-314 IS GRANTED and GTE Telecom, Inc. is authorized to: 1) resell international private lines not interconnected to the public switched network; 2) provide facilities based service between the United States and the Dominican Republic. 41. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that GTE Telecom shall comply with Sections 43.82, 63.19, 63.21 and 63.15(b) and with all other relevant Commission rules and policies. 42. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that GTE Mobilnet shall comply with Sections 63.19, and 63.21 and with all other relevant Commission rules and policies. 43. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that GTE Telecom may not -- and GTE Telecom's tariffs must state that its customers may not -- connect their private lines to the public switched network at either the U.S. or foreign end, or both, for the provision of international switched basic services unless the Commission has authorized the provision of such service. See 47 C.F.R.  63.18(e)(2)(ii)(c), (e)(3) (4); 63.21(a). 44. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that neither GTE Telecom nor GTE Mobilnet may agree to accept special concessions from Codetel or CANTV with respect to the services that they provide between the United States and the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. "Special concessions" is defined in Section 63.14(b) of the Commission's rules as amended by the Commission's Foreign Participation Order, FCC 97-398. 45. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED THAT AT&T's Petitions to Deny in Part ARE DENIED. 46. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that GTE Telecom shall be regulated as a dominant carrier on the U.S.-Dominican Republic and U.S.-Venezuela routes, pursuant to Section 214 of the Act, 47 U.S.C.  214 and Section 63.10 of the Commission's Rules and shall comply with the requirements of paragraph (c) of that section, except to the extent that it provides service "solely through the resale of an unaffiliated U.S. facilities-based carrier's international switched services" pursuant to Section 63.10(a)(4). The quarterly traffic reports filed pursuant to Section 63.10(c) must include the information required by Section 43.61 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R.  43.61, for "resale of international switched services" on the U.S.- Dominican Republic and Venezuela routes. 47. This Order is issued under Section 0.261 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R.  0.261 (1996), and is effective upon adoption. Petitions for reconsideration under Section 1.106 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R.  1.106 (1996), or applications for review under Section 1.115 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R.  1.115 (1996), may be filed within 30 days of the date of public notice of this Order and Authorization (see 47 C.F.R.  1.4(b)(2)). FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Diane J. Cornell Chief, Telecommunications Division