The FCC should stop “excessive” special-access pricing by AT&T and Verizon, the NoChokePoints Alliance, a new coalition of competitors and customers of the big phone companies (CD June 18 p7), told reporters Monday. “Releasing the broadband economy from the choke hold these huge phone companies have on the special-access market will be a catalyst for innovation and investment in the broadband marketplace,” said spokeswoman Maura Corbett. The coalition’s statement prompted a flurry of counter-statements from incumbent local exchange carriers and others.

Government needs to play a much larger role in getting broadband to the most rural consumers if this country “is serious” about making the Internet ubiquitous, said Daniel Mitchell, vice president of legal affairs for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, a trade association that represents small rural providers. He spoke at the Pike & Fischer broadband conference Thursday.

The FCC should immediately “reregulate” the special access market, and reject arguments by USTelecom and others that an FCC data request is needed, said Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, New America Foundation and U.S. PIRG. In a Wednesday letter to acting Chairman Michael Copps, the public interest groups said no new data is needed to see that the FCC’s 2000 decision to deregulate the market “has resulted in higher prices and market dominance by incumbent providers such as Qwest, AT&T and Verizon.” USTelecom’s effort to spur a new data request is “a transparent delaying tactic designed to prolong for as long as possible the extraction of monopoly rents by its members,” they said. If the FCC decides more information is needed, it should compel it from USTelecom members, they said. “If this information indicates that potential competitors have not been forthcoming about their services, the Commission has the power to compel responses from them as well.” Any data request should be “short and clearly targeted,” they said. “It’s somewhat ironic that Public Knowledge is asking the FCC to take action without the knowledge and data necessary to make an informed decision on such a complex and important issue,” said a USTelecom spokesman. The current deregulatory policy has resulted in $120 billion in private-sector investment over the past two years, he said. “We should be focusing constructively together on continuing this investment, not reverting to failed policies that held it back.”

The FCC should set a goal for everyone in the U.S. to have broadband access by early 2014, major phone companies said late Monday as comments for the commission’s national plan continued arriving. There was wide agreement that overhauling the Universal Service Fund must be a high priority.

USTelecom and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance cited remarks by acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps on the need for a broad overhaul of how regulatory fees are assessed to argue that the commission’s May proposal falls short. A commission rulemaking as it assessed fees for fiscal 2009 drew a handful of other comments, most focused on narrow points.

A diverse group of “sellers and purchasers of special access services” recommended a set of guidelines for a proposed data request, should the FCC ask for data from carriers on special access charges. The group said the FCC should “establish financial performance and productivity for incumbent price-cap carrier special access by gathering historical data on revenues, costs, and inputs”; identify areas of the country where competition is lacking; evaluate what demand and pricing data from the largest buyers and of services “indicates about competition”; and “identify terms and conditions imposed on purchasers of incumbent price-cap carrier special access that thwart competition.” “AT&T, Verizon and a handful of other incumbent price-cap carriers have dominant positions in the provision of special access in their home markets,” the petition said. It cited complaints by wireless carriers Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, two large purchasers of special access circuits that signed the petition. Both say “they have in most cases, for years, purchased the vast majority of their high-capacity circuits from incumbent LECs -- their competitors in the wireless market,” the petition said. “Careful scrutiny clearly reveals that the market for special access service is not competitive.” The net result of an uncompetitive market is predictable, the petition argued: “Rates for special access service are extremely high. Even the most favorable prices available under long-term contracts are much higher than the regulated, cost-based prices for equivalent unbundled network elements.” Other signers of the petition were the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Integra Telecom, the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Group, tw telecom, BT Americas, Cbeyond and One Communications. “Large incumbent global carriers like AT&T and Verizon still exert unfair control in the business broadband market,” said Don Shepheard, tw telecom vice president of federal regulatory affairs. “Those companies are preventing American businesses, schools and doctors from fully realizing the potential of high-speed Internet service.” Colleen Boothby, lawyer for the ad hoc users groups, said: “For too long, business customers have been forced to accept inflated prices and unreasonable practices in the business broadband market because the FCC de-regulated AT&T, Verizon and other traditional providers even though they face little or no competition.” The filing “by these purchasers and competitors is a reluctant acknowledgment that all parties concerned recognize that the FCC lacks adequate data in this area,” said, Glenn Reynolds, vice president for policy at USTelecom said in an interview. “It’s good to see that they are for the first time offering to provide at least some data on the existence of competition for high-capacity facilities after refusing to do so in response to several previous inquiries by the FCC, the state commissions and GAO, among others.”

USTelecom joined Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel in asking the FCC to reject a Corr Wireless petition that seeks to have universal service monies that used to flow to Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel redirected into a pool shared by all competitive eligible telecommunications carriers. The wireline association called Corr arguments “nonsensical.”

An FCC ban on exclusive deals between apartment buildings and pay-TV providers was upheld Tuesday in a ruling by the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit. It dismissed arguments by the cable industry that a section of the Communications Act the commission relied on in its 2007 order didn’t cover the deals. Judge David Tatel wrote the ruling, endorsed by Judges Merrick Garland and Laurence Silberman. USTelecom, Verizon and AT&T, an intervenor in NCTA v. FCC, said the ruling bolsters video competition.

Collecting data requested by USTelecom and Verizon on competitive facilities would “present a distorted picture” of the special access market, CompTel said in a Monday letter to the FCC. It’s expected the commission will soon order data from carriers involved with special access (CD May 19 p1). But proposals by incumbent local exchange carriers “seek data in a manner intended to exaggerate the extent of competition by failing to distinguish data on facilities leased from the ILEC from data on the competitor’s own facilities,” CompTel said. For example, the USTelecom proposal seeks information on facilities “you own, utilize or control” and dark fiber, while Verizon wants data on services “provided either on an on-net or off-net basis,” said the association of competitive local exchange carriers. “Only facilities that are owned by competitors are competitive facilities.” CompTel doesn’t believe the FCC needs any more data to back a determination that it should regulate and reduce ILEC special access prices, the CLEC association said. However, if the FCC decides it needs more, “it should seek data from the ILECs regarding their special access costs and profit margins, as well as price,” it said. “The Commission cannot ignore these indicia of market power.”

The FCC faces growing pressure from Congress to look into special-access prices. That’s a recurring theme of wireless carriers led by Sprint Nextel, which call the costs of linking their cell sites to their networks the largest expense of providing backhaul. Special-access prices were a consistent theme at a the House Communications Subcommittee hearing this month. The FCC could act quickly by releasing a public notice seeking data from carriers that has been at the commission since May 2008, FCC officials said.