Industry participants consider Internet backbone market to be gen...
Industry participants consider Internet backbone market to be generally competitive, General Accounting Office (GAO) said in report responding to request by Sen. DeWine (R-O.). Participants told GAO that prices were declining and “the ability of purchasers to negotiate other…
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favorable contract terms has improved.” However, GAO said only “a handful” of backbone providers had extensive scope and it often was difficult to change providers because of difficulty readdressing their networks. Participants also told GAO that limited choice in market for local telephone providers was creating problems for ISPs. GAO said future evolution of backbone market was likely to be affected by increasing demand for time-sensitive services such as voice, and demand for bandwidth-intensive services such as broadband video: “Many of the officials we interviewed were concerned about the availability of necessary infrastructure in the local telephone networks to support the delivery of broadband content.” FCC periodically should evaluate whether there’s sufficient data about competitiveness of backbone market, GAO concluded.