USTelecom, Verizon and the Fiber-to-the-Home Council (FTTH) criticized CLEC proposals...

to FCC policies would require “virtually all copper network plant to be left in place indefinitely,” said USTelecom, urging the commission to “summarily reject this request as fundamentally at odds with long-standing Commission policy favoring the deployment of robust, facilities-based broadband service to all Americans” (http://bit.ly/YYTFCN). Telcos need flexibility to choose the technology they will use to serve customers, and although copper is still often used, “it ultimately will not make economic sense for a given provider to retain redundant parallel network facilities in some areas,” Verizon and Verizon Wireless said (http://bit.ly/YYTY0C). The commission should encourage TelePacific and other companies that need access to ILEC copper loops “to engage constructively with wireline carriers to develop feasible wholesale solutions” or “take this opportunity to invest in their own network facilities,” Verizon said. FTTH said the proposal would unnecessarily slow the process ILECs use to retire copper plant (http://bit.ly/YYUNq9). Chairman Julius Genachowski’s vision for gigabit networks in each community (CD Jan 22 p1) will be harder to achieve if ILECs face the financial difficulty of maintaining their existing copper plant, FTTH said. “Any request to amend the current rules to impose greater burdens on retiring copper facilities would be contrary to the public interest and should be rejected,” it said. But CLECs and communications equipment makers supported the proposal. Trade association TexAlTel argued copper continues to be an important piece of the “ever evolving” national telecom infrastructure (http://bit.ly/YYVDmA). Protecting copper from premature retirement will actually promote affordable broadband, said the Midwest Association of Competitive Communications, as it would lead to more providers and would promote competition in the telecom market (http://bit.ly/YYW3JM). Ethernet over copper is a “significant, widely deployed and growing next generation technology that is critical to the Commission’s National Broadband Plan and the migration from legacy to Ethernet/IP services,” said Ethernet manufacturer Overture Networks (http://bit.ly/YYXisr). Ethernet over copper “is a means to deliver IP, and not a legacy TDM technology,” it said. Copper loop technology has “advanced greatly since the initial implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,” said communications equipment manufacturer Adtran (http://bit.ly/YYWxzB). “Copper is far from obsolete."