Special Access Data Collection to Begin After OMB Approval

The OMB review was supposed to have taken no more than 60 days after it began in December, an FCC spokesman said. The review was apparently lengthened by lobbying on both sides, said an attorney representing one of the companies that pushed for FCC action. “I think both sides have been in there” lobbying the OMB, the attorney said. The FCC spokesman attributed the eight-month review to its being “a complex, comprehensive data collection” that involved “significant feedback from industry and OMB’s careful scrutiny.”

OMB changes will reduce the number of “burden hours” to report the data by 40 percent, but will still allow the agency “to get the data it needs to evaluate competition in the special access marketplace,” said the commission spokesman. He said there was no estimate for how long the collection will take. OMB did not respond to an email seeking comment. Several changes made by OMB were praised by NCTA. The changes ease “the overwhelming and unnecessary burden that would have been imposed on our members by the Commission’s proposed data collection,” an NCTA spokesman emailed. Among the changes, according to the OMB approval (http://1.usa.gov/1o6sb99), was that the companies will only be required to gather data for 2013 instead of potentially for 2010 and 2012 as the FCC proposed.

"Special access service has become increasingly important in the digital economy, enabling businesses large and small to connect to their customers around the globe,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement (http://fcc.us/1v9xAlw). “Consistent with the terms of OMB’s approval, we will move forward with data collection and fact-based analysis that will help the Commission better understand competition in this marketplace, and the impact on consumers as we pursue the Commission’s statutory mandate to ensure special access services are provided at reasonable rates and on reasonable terms and conditions."

Special access rates have been at “monopoly levels” for over a decade, said Cathy Sloan, Computer and Communications Industry Association vice president-government relations. “It’s late,” but OMB approval is “significant” to begin a process that could set the stage for FCC action, she said. “The only way to put a stop to the highway robbery is for the FCC to take action.” CCIA advocates for restrictions on what it sees as anti-competitive terms and conditions and “excessive” rates. An AT&T spokeswoman referred to the company’s 2012 statement when the data collection was approved. The company called it “a mountain of work designed to set the price for a relatively low-speed business service that does not even meet the National Broadband Plan’s definition of broadband in the consumer market. ... All this against a backdrop where the industry -- fueled by demand for mobile Internet data -- is rapidly moving yesteryear’s copper-based special access services to fiber-based, IP services. This transition is attracting new competitors, creating greater network capacity and broadband speeds, and promoting industry-wide investment and job-creation."

CCIA, Sprint and other proponents of data collection were still assessing the OMB changes. At first glance, Sloan said they appeared to be minor. “The Commission will now be able to move forward on this long delayed and critical proceeding,” Sprint said in a statement. “Special access remains a critical issue during the transition to an IP network and Sprint remains confident that additional data will only confirm that the special access market is broken. Meaningful special access reform is essential to Chairman Wheeler’s goal of promoting competition, innovation and consumer welfare."

"It is our hope that this process will lead to rapid, fact-based evaluation and correction of long-standing special access market failures so that small, mid-sized and enterprise consumers, including government, schools, libraries and healthcare facilities, can benefit from a robust, competitive communications marketplace,” said Comptel CEO Chip Pickering in a statement. “While consumers may not know what special access is, they use it every day, whenever they use a smartphone, stream a movie, pay a bill online, or engage in countless other activities,” said Joe Cavender, Level 3 vice president-federal affairs: “And for too long, even as competition has developed in other parts of the communications market, the special access market has been dominated by the old monopoly telephone companies, who charge prices that are too high and use their monopoly power to block competitors from entering the market -- practices that cost consumers, businesses, non-profits, and governments billions every year."

Others said the effort is unnecessary. “Today’s decision is puzzling and likely counter-productive,” said Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, in a statement. “As the nation transitions to next generation IP-based networks and services, we all agree that advancing broadband deployment and enhancing facilities-based competition are our top priorities. Yet re-regulating yesterday’s increasingly antiquated legacy network services does not seem likely to serve this imperative. Instead precious FCC resources and time get squandered on a business service whose bandwidth today fails to qualify as consumer broadband.”(kmurakami@warren-news.com)