Two competitive carriers – NuVox Communications and XO Communications – this morning filed an emergency motion with the Federal Communications Commission, asked the agency to disclose all communications it has had with AT&T in the final hours before the FCC’s vote on the AT&T-BellSouth merger.

The motion refers to a Reuters news report in which Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior vice president for regulatory affairs, is quoted as saying his company is negotiating with the FCC and offering conditions for the merger, in hopes of getting a unanimous approval vote.

Such negotiations would amount to ex parte communications and violate the Government in the Sunshine act, the NuVox/XO motion states. The two companies are calling on the FCC to disclose the substance of any discussions it has had with AT&T prior to the merger vote, which is expected today. Specifically, the companies want the FCC to order AT&T to make ex parte filings regarding conditions it is offering for the merger, to enable other players to react and respond.

The petition is part of a flurry of last-minute activity by competitive carriers and others who oppose AT&T’s acquisition of BellSouth to either derail the merger or, more likely, convince the FCC to impose terms and conditions, such as a requirement that the larger AT&T continue to sell unbundled loops to competitors.

Time-Warner Telecom made its final plea to the FCC along those lines late Thursday.

“Time Warner Telecom is an innovative competitor that derives most of its revenue from services delivered over its own fiber network,” said Paul Jones, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Time Warner Telecom. “We are one of the largest competitive service providers of business-class services with over 6,400 commercial buildings directly connected to our own fiber network. In contrast, AT&T and BellSouth have local facilities serving literally hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings. In the situations where we must use incumbent carrier local transmission facilities to reach distant customer locations, we, and other industry competitors, need regulatory checks on incumbent monopoly power to enable competition while protecting business customers from higher prices and degraded service quality.”