ITTA, USTelecom Cite Rural Telco BDS Burdens in Defending Petition for Rulemaking Relief
Business data service rules "impose lopsided and burdensome costs" on many rural telcos, said ITTA and USTelecom, defending their petition for an FCC rulemaking to consider allowing rate-of-return RLECs receiving model-based USF support to opt into price-cap BDS relief. "The…
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inflexibility of the regulations preclude such carriers from offering beneficial rates, terms, and conditions to their BDS customers, including institutional customers like schools, universities, and hospitals," said the two ILEC trade groups' reply comments Friday in docket 17-144. The current rules "deter rate-of-return carriers from making the investment necessary to meet the modern communications needs of American businesses and other enterprises," they said. "The toxic mix of burdensome and unnecessary costs, inflexible rules straightjacketing BDS terms of service, and disincentives to broadband investment, often make the costs of traditional rate-of-return regulation exceed the benefits." The groups said there's ample support for the need to "modernize" the rules and "the single opposition lacks support and is misguided." In initial comments, RLEC interests generally backed the petition, Sprint filed opposition and AT&T raised some issues (see 1707070030).