SBA Urges FCC ‘Vigilance’ on Middle Mile, Special Access, 700 MHz Spectrum
The FCC should be “vigilant” in its oversight of middle-mile prices and access, seek public comment on whether its rules on retirement of copper-wire networks let ILECs keep small carriers out of the market, consider a rulemaking on access to and device interoperability on the newly auctioned 700 MHz spectrum and “examine the impact” on CLECs before increasing rates on pole attachments, the Small Business Administration’s advocacy office said. The comments came in response to last month’s public notice from the Wireline Bureau, which asked for input on how broadband affects small and medium-sized businesses. SBA said its comments reflect the views of leaders from small broadband companies who participated in an Oct. 5 agency roundtable.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The SBA said it’s wrapped up the Congressionally mandated study on small business’ broadband costs and options. The mammoth report won’t differ significantly from Friday’s comments, an SBA official said.
Verizon, Verizon Wireless and Time Warner Cable were among those painting a rosier picture of a dynamic and robustly competitive market, suggesting that the FCC ought to take what AT&T called “a light touch” with regulation. Time Warner Cable said the commission should “reject” proposals for special access reform to preserve its “pro-investment regulatory framework.” Verizon said the market was so dynamic that “any attempt to group business customers by size … is necessarily arbitrary.”
Verizon, Comcast and the newly formed National Association of MultiCultural Digital Entrepreneurs praised “cloud” computing, in which small companies share high-speed, pay-as-you-go remote Internet servers to cut down on broadband costs. Comcast cited recent research by the Yankee Group that estimated “cloud” computing could save a 25-employee company $11,000 in the first year and $36,000 over three years.
CompTel and the Section 271 Coalition agreed with the SBA. The coalition backed an immediate rulemaking to keep ILECs from retiring copper wire networks arbitrarily and to give smaller carriers unbundled access to fiber-to-the-home, fiber-to-the-curb and hybrid fiber/copper loops. The market’s migration away from circuit-switched services to Internet protocol is “the overarching trend that concerns us the most,” the group said. It urged the commission to enact “parallel regulatory reforms” that would let small carriers access end-users at broadband speeds. As a model, the FCC “should look to the pioneering work of” the U.K.’s regulator, “Ofcom and its recently adopted policies governing Virtual Unbundled Local Access,” the coalition said. VULA is designed to give carriers “generic” access to fiber lines, the group said.
Sprint Nextel focused almost exclusively on special access rates. It cited a federal 2008 Networx contract, which Sprint claimed it lost because Verizon and AT&T could offer retail prices that were “substantially below” the wholesale access price available to Sprint. Even when it can keep its costs below AT&T or Verizon subsidiaries, “the disparity in special access expense is so wide that the RBOC affiliates are able to under-bid Sprint by up to 20 percent,” the company said.
The National Exchange Carrier Association tried to talk the FCC out of overhauling the Universal Service Fund regulations contemplated in the National Broadband Plan. Rural carriers “rely heavily on existing cost-recovery systems” like “high-cost universal service support, rate of return regulation and intercarrier compensation, to support the investments, operations and maintenance required to provide advanced services in high-cost rural areas,” NECA said. The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association said the broadband plan’s USF “actual” speed requirements of at least 100 Mbps for downloads and at least 50 Mbps for uploads is a “low-ball goal” that “will not only disadvantage rural households, but is likely to substantially hinder the financial success of rural businesses.”