Windstream CEO Seeks Regulatory Help To Ensure Viable Wholesale Market
FCC special access regulation is needed to ensure competitors can lease access to incumbent telco facilities on reasonable wholesale terms, Windstream CEO Tony Thomas said at the Incompas Show Monday. About 77 percent of business buildings have just one facilities-based…
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provider, 20 percent have two, and 2 percent have three or more, he said in Oxon Hill, Maryland: "That is the state of competition and it's not going to change overnight" due to the economics. Windstream is investing heavily to deploy fiber and upgrade its networks, but it's a "drop in the bucket," given the challenge of serving business customers with multilocation offices across the country, he said. Incumbent telcos said competitive fiber runs close to the vast majority of buildings and could be connected to them, and Thomas said long-haul connections are "pretty easy," but the "last half-mile" is "really hard and really expensive on both ends" of communications transmissions. Installing fiber underground in major cities such as Washington or Los Angeles is costly and difficult, particularly without existing rights of way, he said: "That's why we need a robust wholesale market." Thomas said the Ethernet market, which has been deregulated by FCC forbearance decisions, is "fundamentally flawed" with "staggering" problems, such as higher wholesale prices than retail prices and frequent "special construction charges" that constitute "back-door price increases meant to impede competition." Without more reasonable wholesale prices and related terms and conditions, business customers will often be left with just one provider, he said.