FCC'S MARTIN: EASE UP ILEC REGULATION TO FAST-TRACK BROADBAND
SANTA CLARA, Cal. -- Comr. Kevin Martin said FCC must pare “regulatory underbrush” to promote investment and dramatically speed its work, starting by promptly lightening incumbents’ network-sharing obligations and redefining upward access speeds constituting broadband. He told SuperNet conference here Wed. Commission should push to complete this year 3 key rulemakings started in Dec. -- on performance measures for competitive access to incumbent networks, application of unbundling requirements, and broadband’s definition -- so service providers and investors could enter 2003 with stable, friendly regulatory environment that wouldn’t hold back capital recovery.
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Commission definitions of broadband have been slower than consumers demand, which is speed capable of delivering video on demand and other uses that will emerge once “tipping point” is reached, Martin said. He said current speeds had depressed penetration and regulations should offer incentives, particularly to incumbents, to encourage newly defined broadband development. FCC should do its part to remove requirements that incumbents lease network pieces to competitors at “superefficient prices,” which Martin said discourage both incumbent investment and facilities-based competition. At same time, remaining access mandates should be enforced promptly, he said. FCC should move toward parity of regulation between phone and cable networks, which don’t have to share facilities, Martin said. But he cautioned that that must be done cautiously by “regulating down” on telcos, not up on cable, and not completely because federal law treated industries disparately and cable bore city franchise burdens including fees.
Too often, FCC has been “unclear how it is moving forward and it has stymied companies’ investment,” Martin said. Instead of continuing to conduct protracted negotiations over merger concessions, he said Commission should address specific consolidation harms by imposing tailored conditions. Resolving network-sharing complaints has been cut to average of 13 months, but that’s still too slow, Martin said. He said FCC should redefine itself as carrying out core principles established by Congress and become quicker to acknowledge and abandon what he said were misbegotten and outmoded policies.
Martin also said govts. at all levels should stop looking to broadband and its applications as sources of new revenue, and depreciation schedules should be “rationalize[d]” to take into account how swiftly telecom gear became obsolete.