Local competition might have developed more quickly without Telec...
Local competition might have developed more quickly without Telecom Act, former FCC official said Wed. at Washington symposium sponsored by think tank Phoenix Center. Telecom Act stymied experimentation by state regulators and put brakes on competition that already was…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
developing under state tutelage, said Robert Atkinson, ex-FCC Common Carrier Bureau deputy chief. Atkinson, who was senior vp of pre-Telecom Act competitor Teleport Communications before joining Commission, said competition was developing long before Telecom Act through enforcement of AT&T divestiture agreement, known as Modified Final Judgment (MFJ). Issues such as colocation and reciprocal compensation had been solved, although “not perfectly,” when Act came on scene and froze market “because everything became a federal case,” said Atkinson, now exec. dir. of Columbia U.’s Institute for Tele-Information. States were much more able to experiment in competitive models in limited geographic areas, he said. Bells traded enforcement through Sec. 8(c) of MFJ for Act’s Sec. 271, resulting in “a 14- point logjam,” he said. Furthermore, Atkinson said, Telecom Act “over-encouraged investors,” leading to financial failures. Situation might be improved if FCC were willing to delegate some authority to state regulators to oversee local competition models, he said. More legislation generally won’t help, although Congress could help situation by giving FCC more enforcement power, not just through fines but through “the ultimate sanction, structural remedies, the potential atomic bomb,” he said. Most of all, Congress should resist micromanaging FCC: “Legislators are terrible at micromanagement.” Atkinson and Robert Berger, pres. of competitive CityNet and former WinStar official, also criticized Act as disincentive to facilities-based competition. Placing too low price on unbundled network elements (UNEs) saps value of those companies that have spent money to install their own lines, Atkinson said. Best price is one that enables competitors to “break even,” he said. “You shouldn’t be able to make money using a competitor’s facilities,” Atkinson said. Berger said Telecom Act gave false sense of “instant gratification” that encouraged investment based on time frames that were entirely too short.