The ILECs' national lobbyist has a long-range plan to represent the entire telecommunications industry and is stringently trying to lure CLECs to join its organization. Numerous CLECs, in fact, have decided to go down that road.
Executives for several CLECs met with the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA, www.usta.org) in Chicago recently to develop a work plan for 2001 covering legislative, regulatory and technical issues. Some of the topics discussed during the closed meeting included Federal Communications Commission (FCC, www.fcc.gov) reform; the Internet; interconnection; taxes; universal service; technological and network management; and access charges.
"We hosted this meeting in order to find common ground among us on regulatory and legislative issues," explains Michelle Tober, director of communications for USTA. "We wanted to be able to discuss policy issues that we have in common."
The invitation-only meeting was comprised of USTA members, which predominantly include ILECs, but which also include 17 member CLECs. Among the competitive carriers that are USTA members include Advanced Telcom Group Inc. (www.callatg.com); SunWest Communications Inc. (www.sunwest.net); and FairPoint Communications (www.fairpoint.com).
"As the industry is evolving and converging, so is USTA with its commitment to provide a 'home' for CLECs, wireless carriers, Internet Service Providers and others down the road," said Gary Lytle, interim president and CEO of USTA. "Every issue resolved by working together as an industry is one less costly battle for telecom companies to fight at the FCC, before Congress, or in the courts."
While that's a noble objective, Jonathan Askin, general counsel for the national CLEC lobbyist, the Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS, www.alts.org), says it's pretty far-fetched.
"It seems like a farce to expect CLECs to join the national lobbying force working against them," Askin says. "The USTA's duty is to ensure ILEC monopoly power."
Askin says that conflicts do need resolution, but it can't happen when the CLECs "are not allowed on USTA's governing board and never will be."
"This is not to say that USTA members and CLECs shouldn't try to work together as a group," Askin notes. "But CLECs should have equal bargaining power, and not operate as a subservient arm of USTA."
Nonetheless, Tober says USTA has held several meetings throughout the year with CLECs and the CLEC affiliates of incumbent local telcos. To date, 17 independent CLECs have joined USTA, she said, and the association is aggressively recruiting other facilities-based CLEC members.
As the CLEC industry has grown since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, many ILECs simultaneously have expanded into other lines of business, including the creation of CLEC subsidiaries to offer competitive local telephone service outside their traditional service areas. These and other industry developments led USTA to change its bylaws to allow facilities-based carriers to join the association and have representation on its board of directors.
Earlier this year, in fact, USTA created a CLEC Council to address the needs of both its stand-alone CLEC members, as well as those of traditional ILEC members that have formed CLEC subsidiaries.
"USTA's member companies are no longer just 'the local phone company,'" Lytle says. "An increasing number of traditional local telephone companies have entered new markets, offering local, long-distance, wireless and other services to customers in direct competition with other incumbent local telcos.
USTA recognizes that its member companies have much in common with the CLEC industry, Lytle added.
