AT&T asked FCC to adopt performance measures, reporting requireme...
AT&T asked FCC to adopt performance measures, reporting requirements and “meaningful remedies” to assure ILECs offer interstate special access services in fair manner. Company told Commission in petition filed Tues. that its proposal would complement performance measurement system FCC…
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was contemplating for ILEC provision of unbundled network elements (UNEs). AT&T said long distance companies and CLECs had “desperate need for special access services provided by ILECs” but special access provision was “routinely marred by delays, poor quality and discrimination in favor of the ILECs and their retail customers.” It’s particularly important that FCC act because “unlike UNEs, for which jurisdiction is shared with state commissions, interstate special access problems are uniquely the responsibility of this Commission.” Poor providing of special access can hinder CLECs’ attempts to compete as much as can poor UNE provisioning, AT&T said. Saying FCC is expected to move forward on metric system for UNEs, AT&T said “a regime that addresses UNEs, and ignores special access will be doomed to failure.” AT&T said it expected ILECs to counter its request by pointing out that FCC must have considered special access market competitive because it gave ILECs pricing flexibility for that market. “Any such argument would be wrong,” AT&T said, contending that FCC didn’t say special access services were competitive but rather determined that sometimes there were “circumstances under which incumbents will be granted a measure of pricing flexibility.” AT&T officials said BellSouth raised its rates this week for special access services in areas where it had been granted pricing flexibility, which AT&T said indicated BS still had market power in those areas. BellSouth spokesman said FCC clearly agreed there was competition in those areas. “That’s why it gave us pricing flexibility.”