Speakers at a NARUC intercarrier compensation panel said intercar...

crush their opponents instead of negotiating mutual gains. Investors have tended to reward the most hyper-realistic extreme players. Against investor expectations, you had to be as insane as the craziest player in the market or you'd drop off the investors’ radar screens.” That climate wasn’t conducive to negotiating sensible reforms, he said. Today’s trends point to the end of intercarrier relations as we know them because Internet-based applications will bypass current bottlenecks. Joel Lubin, AT&T senior vp, said the only kind of intercarrier compensation possible in a broadband world is terminating rates. Without intercarrier compensation, he said the only way to pay for broadband infrastructure is through an explicit federal fund. “So long as carriers can charge their competitors for terminating traffic, there will be a need for intercarrier compensation regulation,” Charles McKee, Sprint/Nextel govt. affairs dir., said. IP-based telecom over broadband networks attacks traditional network distinctions, he said, adding that universal broadband requires the embedded infrastructure remain accessible. “Wholesale regulation and intercarrier compensation will remain so long as voice is a critical component of service bundles,” Steve Morris, NCTA assoc. gen. counsel, said: “For voice, competitive carriers need access to incumbents’ networks, and that means wholesale rate regulation will continue to be needed even if retail rates are deregulated.” Commercial negotiations to set intercarrier compensation are problematic because incumbents have little incentive to cooperate, he said.