COMPTEL EYES CAMPAIGN TO FORCE STRUCTURAL SEPARATION ON BELLS
CompTel said it was considering legislative campaign to urge structural separation on Bell companies in return for broadband LATA freedom. “This is not a wild-eyed theory,” CompTel Pres. Russell Frisby said at Tues. news briefing. Think of it as “return to the MFJ era,” he said, referring to Modified Final Judgment that laid ground rules for 1984 AT&T divestiture. Frisby said trade association hadn’t decided whether to recommend separation idea to Congress but idea would be to follow what Pa. PUC had required of Verizon -- separation of retail and wholesale operations. In return, Bells’ retail units would receive permission to offer data services across LATA lines without gaining Sec. 271 approval from FCC, Frisby said: “My sense is there are some people on the Hill who would be interested.”
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CompTel’s other legislation goals were more predictable: (1) Opposing current Bell efforts to gain interLATA data relief, short of structural separation idea. Allowing Bells to provide interLATA service without accompanying local competition would result in “remonopolizing” telecom industry, Frisby said. “We will fight any renewal of anticompetitive legislation by the Bells,” he said. (2) Urging Congress to give FCC more enforcement authority. For example, Commission should be permitted to impose higher penalties -- “as high as $1 million per day” -- on ILECs that don’t provide nondiscriminatory access to unbundled network elements, association said. Frisby said it was doubtful that FCC’s recent $6 million penalty would have much effect on SBC because, while biggest ever levied, it still wasn’t big enough. Commission also should have power to “immediately suspend” Sec. 271 authority of any Bell that backslides and harms competitors’ ability to provision service, group said. Unbundled network element (UNE) pricing is “critical” for competitive local entry, Frisby said.
(3) Fighting any reciprocal compensation proposal that doesn’t “fairly compensate” competitors for Internet traffic they carry. Telecom Act specifies use of reciprocal compensation, Frisby said. He said reciprocal compensation should be considered as part of FCC’s broader look at intercarrier compensation. Agency is poised to issue notice of inquiry on moving all carrier compensation regimes to similar process. CompTel officials also revealed that CLECs differ on voluntary nature of FCC’s current reciprocal compensation proposal. “At a minimum it ought to be cost based and states ought to be able to carry out reciprocal compensation measures they've already approved,” CompTel Gen. Counsel Carol Ann Bischoff said.