Rising alarm over the potential consequences of FCC proceedings affecting competition in telecommunications has prompted two Washington groups and a cluster of service providers to launch an initiative aimed at persuading the commission to take a new course.
The Competitive Telecommunications Association, the Association of Local Telecommunications Services and their service provider allies said they were creating a Competition Working Group that would reach out to Congress, the press, consumer groups, other industries and the commission itself to ensure that “rules now being considered by the FCC are consistent with the intent of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.” While leaders of the two groups said in a teleconference yesterday that they believed the questions raised by the commission in various proceedings left room for action more favorable to their cause, they also made clear they saw little hope for such an outcome without a groundswell of resistance to the commission’s present leanings on the issues.
“The basic reason for forming this coalition is that the future of local competition is at risk,” said John Windhausen, Jr. president of ALTS. Competitors to the Bells and other ILECs have invested some $65 billion in building high-speed local networks “based on rules that the FCC adopted” under the Telecom Act, he said, adding, “The FCC has now thrown all those rules up into the air.”
The message of the Working Group, as articulated by CompTel president Russell Frisby, Jr., will be that “significant changes in the availability of unbundled network elements and the reclassification of wireline broadband services as an information service will limit the ways in which competitive providers can reach consumers.”
These issues are under consideration in the commission’s triennial review of the unbundled elements regime and in a notice of proposed rulemaking that contemplates defining broadband Internet services offered over DSL as information services that use a transmission component. That leaves open such questions as the extent to which current unbundling rules at the wholesale level and the requirements of open access at the retail level will be sustained. The coalition also is focusing attention on a third proceeding under which the commission is weighing whether to accord ILECs non-dominant status in the broadband telecommunications arena, given the presence of competition from cable operators and others.
Frisby, in an interview following the press conference, noted, “Clearly the FCC has indicated in its (wireline broadband) NPRM that it’s inclined to go in a direction that’s harmful to CLECs, but that’s not final. We believe they’re asking in good faith a lot of questions which, if properly answered, would bend one to the conclusion that you need to keep the facilities open under the information services classification.”
To get that message across, the Working Group hopes to enlist the support of key members of Congress and officials at the state level as well, Frisby said. It also will be meeting with a wide array of organizations, including new ad hoc groups formed by technology interests to push for a national broadband agenda, he said. Just how the group’s message will be conveyed to the press and the public at large remains undecided, but it could go as far as placement of ads in broadcast media, officials said.
One area of potential concern not immediately targeted by the Working Group is an NPRM parallel to the wireline broadband proceeding that addresses the question of how to regulate cable’s broadband Internet operations. The commission last month, in a declaratory ruling, redefined such services as information services and said it would rule on how cable data would be handled as an information service in light of cable’s unique differences from ILECs. A key difference is that cable, under existing rules, has no unbundling obligations whereas ILECs do.
Qwest Communications International has already asked the commission to determine that VDSL services, which can include traditional cable as well as Internet service, fall under the cable information services classification in instances where an ILEC is deploying VDSL as a cable delivery service under local franchising authority. Frisby, acknowledging that he was unaware of this move by Qwest, said he wasn’t “sure how to react” to the issue as it pertains to the Working Group’s agenda. But, he added, “Somehow I don’t see VDSL as cable. Once again, you have an example of the Bell companies attempting to avoid their obligations under the regulations intended by Congress in the Telecom Act.”
The coalition, which CompTel and ALTS acknowledged was created in spite of some differences on other policy issues, will run as long as necessary in the context of dealing with the FCC’s proceedings, officials said. They emphasized that the move did not signal any intention to merge the two organizations. Service provider members of the Working Group include AT&T, Broadview Networks, Covad Communications Co. e.spire Comunications, Eschelon, ionex telecommunications, KMC Telecom, Metromedia Fiber Network, NuVox Communications, Progress Telecom, Sage Telecom, Talk.com, Time Warner Telecom, WorldCom and Z-Tel Communications.
