USTelecom Official Says Copper Replacement Won’t Hurt Competitors
DALLAS -- There’s “absolutely no harm” to competitive providers if incumbent telecom carriers remove copper wire when they install fiber, USTelecom Vice President Robert Mayer told competitors at CompTel’s convention Wednesday. If a customer wants to go back to a CLEC, the copper feeder wire can be put back, he told the audience. FiOS installers “work to protect the wires,” he said. “I think this is much ado about nothing,” Mayer said of petitions asking the FCC to require incumbents to leave copper wires in place. Although “maintaining a legacy network makes little economic sense,” the wire will be restored on request, so “I don’t think you need safeguards.” The issue arose when Verizon began installing its fiber-based FiOS system, said participants on a panel with Mayer.
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Mayer’s assurances didn’t appear to appease others on the panel. “You see notices filed at the FCC regularly about copper loop retirement so you've got to worry,” said Nuvox Vice President Susan Berlin. Competitors have developed creative, cost-effective broadband solutions for small businesses that depend on copper, she said. Without wholesale access to an incumbent’s copper infrastructure, things like Ethernet over copper can’t be offered, she said.
“It causes harm because we may have planned deployments that would have to be scrapped,” said Lisa Youngers, XO Communications director of federal regulatory affairs. “They say there’s no harm yet but when harm occurs it will be too late. That’s why we want the rules examined.” Youngers said the number of retirement notices filed at the FCC is growing steadily. Q1 of 2007, 142 notices were filed by Verizon and other Bell companies, compared with 160 for all of 2006, she said. “They say it’s not happening, but it is.” The FCC allows “impacted carriers” to object when these routine retirement notices are filed, but “you can’t stop them,” she said. Filing an objection “just gives you more time.”
“Verizon is removing lines from the pole to the house when they deploy FiOS,” saying it’s for esthetic reasons, said moderator John Heitmann, a Washington attorney. “They do it so no one else can use it,” Youngers replied. “They say they will reinstate it but that causes delay, which is anticompetitive.”
“Our members like yours want efficient networks,” Mayer said. “Why would a company migrate to the next generation platform and be forced to maintain aspects of the legacy network largely to benefit non-facilities based competitors,” he asked. “There are other solutions” for providing services than depending on ILEC lines.
The copper network was installed “for the public good” by the old Bell System, with a guaranteed rate of return, said Youngers, who also questioned why the incumbents talk about the inefficiency of maintaining two networks. “It’s one network, with elements of both and will be that way for some time so the argument is a real red herring.”
“We have gone beyond guaranteed returns,” responded Mayer, who also rejected CLEC arguments that the copper network is safer in a power outage because it’s more likely to remain working. “I don’t think the argument is supported that there are more points of failure.”