AT&T Wants To Be All-IP by 2017, Executive Says
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OMAHA, Neb. -- AT&T wants to move to an all-IP network by 2017, company Vice President Hank Hultquist said at an FCC workshop on intercarrier compensation reform here Wednesday. “We're starting to think that we probably want to start that process within this decade,” he said. The fact is, the number of ILEC lines and minutes of use on the public switched network are collapsing. “This transition is going to be short,” Hultquist said in a crowded meeting room at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. “Even if you don’t do anything, it’s going to happen pretty quickly."
Wednesday afternoon’s debate was supposed to focus on how states can get involved in the proposed intercarrier comp overhaul. But most of the discussion centered on the transition to an all-IP network. Hultquist was seconded by Sprint Senior Counsel Rich Morris. “The benefits of reducing access [charges] will go into every carrier that’s providing all-distance service,” he said. “Since we believe there is a nationwide market, with nationwide marketing and prices, there ought to be a nationwide phase-down, nationwide cost-structure -- hopefully bill and keep.” Four years, he said, seemed reasonable.
Opposing Hultquist and Morris were former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, now a vice president with Frontier, and Great Plains Communications Vice President Ken Pfister. He said that a careful transition was needed and that “'quickly’ is in the eye of the beholder.” He said he was angriest about “gibberish” from Verizon and AT&T, calling for voice over Internet Protocol traffic to be assessed at $0.007 per minute -- the so-called “triple-zero seven” rate. “You will see the life sucked out of the intercarrier comp market,” Pfister said. “Ultimately, we need a signal to come forth on whether it’s appropriate to invest in this or not. And if the decision is, no, well, that’s fine, we'll just fold up shop. That’s not a threat."
Abernathy told us after Wednesday’s panel that Morris was examining the national telecom market as if it were the same as shoes. The fact is, companies like hers have made big investments -- some of them imposed as merger conditions by the FCC -- in the public switched telephone network that won’t start paying back for at least 10 years. “You're almost managing two networks,” she said.
Vermont regulator John Burke challenged Morris during Wednesday’s discussion. Morris argued that satellite could provide “reasonably comparable” service that would help close the broadband gap quickly. Burke described the argument as, “Let them eat satellite.” He asked Morris if he had ever tried to download data from a satellite connection. When Morris said he hadn’t done so, Burke shook his head.
Wednesday’s panel over the intercarrier comp transition comes as USTelecom continues to lead industry-wide discussions in the hope of coming up with a telco-endorsed reform package to bring to the FCC by the end of the summer. Several telco lobbyists told us that Windstream has responded favorably to proposals for a three-year transition, with an access recovery fund. This has divided Windstream from other mid-sized carriers like CenturyLink and Frontier, the lobbyists told us.