The FCC is “open to a special access reset,” said...
The FCC is “open to a special access reset,” said Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva, who expects the coming months to see a commission examination of the special access market and the adequacy of 1999 pricing flexibility rules. “Our…
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sense is the FCC has grown skeptical of predictive judgments underlying the adoption of the special access pricing flexibility regime, but at a minimum wants to have a solid legal foundation on which to base any policy pivot,” he said. “Data collection will be key to any FCC decision-making.” Chairman Julius Genachowski has twice asked for voluntary submissions of data, and may issue a mandatory data request, Silva wrote investors. He cited a Jan. 26 motion before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in which a mix of stakeholders withdrew a petition for the court to order the FCC to move forward on special access pricing reform. The motion said the parties based their withdrawal “on recent discussions with the FCC regarding its intention and plans to move forward with and complete the special access services rulemaking.” A special access “inflection point” could come in late Q2 or early Q3 when the FCC could act on AT&T petitions for pricing flexibility in relief in the San Antonio and San Francisco/Oakland markets, the analyst wrote. The stakes could be especially high for AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink, which could lose revenue from businesses that purchase dedicated access lines from major landline companies, the report said.