BDS Regulation Would Be Negative for 5G Deployment, AT&T CEO Says
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn a decision to regulate prices for business data services, “particularly fiber-based BDS, will deter incentives for the rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural America,” said a filing in docket…
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!
05-25. Stephenson and other top AT&T officials met with Clyburn Friday, when the CEO was at the FCC to chair the initial meeting of the industry-led Robocall Strike Force (see 1608190034). A much longer AT&T filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-143 provided extensive arguments against heavy BDS regulation presented by ILEC economists and lawyers, who had a "constructive and wide-ranging discussion" at the FCC on economic analysis in the BDS proceeding. The filing on a meeting with FCC staffers and consultant Marc Rysman said recent market data contradict claims that ILECs exercise broad BDS market power. Even by 2013, non-ILECs earned more than half of BDS revenue, and the market is quickly transitioning from legacy TDM-based BDS to Ethernet-based BDS, and the most recently available Ethernet market share data from Vertical Systems isn't compatible with claims of broad ILEC market power, the filing said. Further data show CLECs and cable operators were delivering more than 60 percent of new connections in the first half of 2016. "These data also shine a spotlight on the absurdity of the CLECs' proposals to regulate ILEC Ethernet services, but not their own Ethernet services," it said. "Level 3, for example, would have the Commission regulate ILECs but not Level 3, notwithstanding that Level 3 has a higher market share than Verizon and CenturyLink, and only slightly lower market share than AT&T. Moreover, ILEC Ethernet market shares have consistently fallen since 2010, while those of the CLECs and cable MSOs [multiple system operators] have consistently increased." The data are "consistent with the more general metrics" from the FCC's 2013 data collection, which showed providers compete for customers at locations within a half mile of their networks, the filing said. The record shows that even in 2013 "at least two providers had deployed competing networks in more than 95 percent of MSA [metropolitan statistical area] census blocks with BDS demand, and that those census blocks cover 97 percent of the BDS connections and 99 percent of business establishments in MSAs." In another filing posted Tuesday on a meeting with FCC staffers, Windstream detailed its support for Incompas/Verizon proposals for "reforms that produce real and meaningful price reductions and prevent backdoor price increases."