Broadband Transport Market Rules Still Needed, Recent Data Release Flawed, CLECs Say
CLECs want the FCC to protect their access to the business data services market by denying a petition from USTelecom to remove a mandate that incumbent LECs provide transport network services to CLECs as an unbundled network element (UNE). The latest smaller-carrier opposition to USTelecom's petition for forbearance from requiring ILECs unbundle and resell access to some of their networks came in responses posted in docket through Monday 18-141 to an April 15 public notice with supplemental business data services statistics. CLECs contend that BDS data is limited and there was insufficient time to comment.
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Last month, USTelecom renewed its request, claiming ILECs shouldn't be forced to sell access at below market rates (see 1905060025). The group also lobbied the regulator last week, per a filing posted Monday. AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications and Verizon, which also sent representatives to that meeting, filed responses to the PN saying there's plenty of competition for data connections. AT&T noted that by 2017, cable companies had deployed service completely bypassing ILEC transport networks to almost 90 percent of the population and households. "There is no doubt that there has been more growth in competition in the intervening 16 months" since Form 477 showed nearly 90 percent of the population and of households had access to cable services with at least 25 Mbps downstream, filed Frontier.
Competitors are unswayed by the new data. Competition in the business-to-business broadband market would be threatened, especially in rural areas, if the FCC grants USTelecom's request, Incompas filed. “It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that cutting off competition from the transport market will raise broadband prices,” said CEO Chip Pickering in a news release. In many areas served by ILEC wire centers, “there is little to no prospect of facilities-based competition entering the transport market,” the group commented.
TPx filed an objection at around the time of the PN to the use of what it believes is erroneous data regarding locations served by UNEs. The CLEC said now that such data shouldn't be used to justify forbearance or reduced regulation by ILECs’ business data services transport offerings. Sprint noted the short comment period allowed only a cursory examination of the newest statistics.
Sprint asked the agency to “examine local competition before considering any further deregulation of DS1 and DS2 interoffice transport services.” The carrier said now that the FCC’s April data tables offer “an incomplete and inaccurate assessment of competition that provides no support” for the proposal to deregulate the transport market. It asked the FCC to acknowledge that the competitive market test established under its 2017 BDS order has failed: “Unconstrained by price caps, ILECs continue to raise rates for DS1 and DS3 business data services ('BDS') by exorbitant amounts despite the Commission’s finding that robust competition would ensure just and reasonable pricing.”
“Incorporating the voluminous data into the USTelecom proceeding at this late date does not give parties a fair opportunity to analyze and address the data” related to the petition, noted Sonic Telecom. It said its counsel didn't get access to the data until three days before the comment deadline. Sonic complained USTelecom filed an extensive ex parte proposing alternative partial forbearance, which outside parties didn't have an opportunity to address.
Meeting last week with staff from the Wireline Bureau, reps from USTelecom and the big telcos offered the alternatives in the event the FCC doesn't fully grant the association's petition. They asked for forbearance from unbundling requirements for DS1 and DS3 loops in census blocks featuring competition from cable providers that offer service speeds of 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up or counties deemed competitive in the BDS proceeding; forbearance from unbundling requirements for digital DS0 loops in census blocks featuring competition from a cable provider offering service at 25/3; forbearance from unbundling requirements for analog DS0 loops nationwide; and forbearance from Telecom Act Section 251(c) resale obligations nationwide.
Forbear from enforcing "anachronistic and lopsided requirements," commented Verizon. It noted "Windstream, one of the largest CLECs, has already withdrawn its objection to the forbearance petition, subject to a reasonable transition period that USTelecom agreed is appropriate for the embedded" UNE base. "The vast majority of all transport UNEs are purchased in urban areas where BDS demand is heavily concentrated and competition is robust, not in rural" or other places where there's less of an economic case for deploying facilities, Verizon said.