Wholesale: Products & Services

Open Product/Process CR PC112116-1 Detail

Description Of Change

Project Meetings

2/15/17 Product/Process CMP Meeting Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said the CMP Notification for this CR was distributed on December 19, 2016. The notice relayed that CenturyLink would be adding a link to the 3rd Party Manhole and Vault Access Construction Guidelines which will give direction to companies that access CenturyLink's manhole and vaults. Mark said there was one CLEC comment during the comment cycle. The Final notification and CenturyLink response to comments were sent January 18, 2017. The CR has been in CLEC test since the effective date of February 2, 2017. Mark said we would keep this CR in CLEC Test and review it in the March meeting. Mark asked if there were any questions. There were none.

1/18/17 Product/Process CMP Meeting Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said this CR was presented last month. A Level 3 notification (the notice should have been a level 4 notification and it is being treated as such by CenturyLink) was distributed on December 19, 2016 to add a link to the 3rd Party Manhole and Vault Access Construction Guidelines. Mark said the CLEC comment cycle ended January 3, 2017 and we had one CLEC comment. The final notification and CenturyLink response to comments is to be sent today with a planned effective date of February 2, 2017.

Kim Isaacs – Electric Lightwave said that she had submitted the comment to insure that there would be no retroactive requirements from CenturyLink in regard to any existing customer arrangements, e.g., slack cable in a manhole, to which CenturyLink had previously agreed was OK.

Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said if there was prior approval by both parties, there was no issue but if there was not prior approval, there could be some remediation for those situations.

Kim Isaacs – Electric Lightwave said there may need to be more discussion about what constitutes “prior approval” to confirm agreement. Kim said her assumption is that if Electric Lightwave completed work in a manhole and CenturyLink reviewed the work and there was no identification of any issues during the CenturyLink inspection, Electric Lightwave would assume that constituted CenturyLink approval. Kim asked if that was correct.

Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said that was what was being clarified as part of the response to comments. If more discussion was required, CenturyLink could schedule something. Mark said he hopes that both sides are in agreement.

12/14/16 Product/Process CMP Meeting John Hansen – CenturyLink presented this new CR. John said CenturyLink makes post-installation inspections and has experienced a large amount of remediation scenarios due to improper work in manholes and vaults. In an effort to lessen rework, a set of guidelines has been created defining what the expectations are for the CLECs and 3rd parties that perform work in our manholes and vaults. The result is a document titled 3rd Party Manhole and Vault Access Construction Guidelines that CenturyLink is adding to the PDR PCAT to help protect the integrity of CenturyLink’s vaults and underground systems and is not intended to override any terms of a customer’s ICA. John asked if there were any questions.

Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said this CR was the result of a level 3 notice that was sent in November. We received a customer request to retract the notice and issue a CR instead.

Kim Isaacs – Electric Lightwave said CenturyLink used “guidelines” in the CR title. It was also just stated that the guidelines do not override the ICA. Kim asked what happens if a customer does not follow the guidelines and wondered if there would be issues on whether the document is applicable.

John Hansen – CenturyLink said the document is not published as a set of rules but is a guide to customers who are working underground on how to do things. If the guidelines are not followed and CenturyLink finds something is not right, it would be at the customer’s expense to make it right.

Kim Isaacs - Electric Lightwave then described a scenario where they were told to do some remediation due to slack cable in a CenturyLink manhole. Kim said her outside plant had a good reason for this and that after it was presented to CenturyLink, CenturyLink understood the rationale. Kim asked if there was room for discussion.

John Hansen – CenturyLink said yes there is room for discussion. The document is designed to be common sense rules for working in the vaults.

Mark Coyne – CenturyLink said that was the reason for using the word guidelines.

Kim Isaacs - Electric Lightwave said it was good to have the communication like the scenario that she provided.

Mark asked if there were any questions. There were none.