CLECs Urge FCC to Get Moving on Broadband Business Docket
CLECs are urging the FCC to get moving on its broadband business docket. The commission issued a public notice on docket 10-188, seeking comments on “the current state of … business broadband markets.” One year later, CLECs say they're growing impatient. “Completing this docket would help safeguard competition in broadband, encouraging investment and innovation and increasing the number of businesses with access to affordable broadband services,” XO Vice President Lisa Youngers said in a statement Thursday. “By moving forward on the Business Broadband Docket, the FCC could help improve productivity and spur job creation across America."
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The competitors say reforming broadband business practices to allow CLECs better access will create jobs and “unleash investment,” Cbeyond General Counsel Bill Weber said. “It’s, in essence, a cashless stimulus.” Competitive telcos have published a study claiming that reforms in broadband business practices would create $60 billion in investments and 450,000 jobs.
Broadband business market reforms are more essential even than special access, Weber said. Other competitive telcos see it differently. Several have filed a joint lawsuit against the commission, asking U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the commission to get moving (CD Sept 8 p17).
An FCC spokesman said the agency “continues making progress on its business broadband agenda, including getting the data we need to examine the performance of the special access and wholesale markets, along with taking steps to reduce the cost and increase the deployment of broadband that can serve business through our efforts to ease access to infrastructure, such as utility poles and towers."
Some CLEC executives have said they're surprised at the lack of FCC action. But Weber said: “It’s very clear to me that Chairman [Julius] Genachowski understands our issues, I think the FCC has been very challenged to deal with issues that have pushed upon it by outside forces. I don’t think it has to do with lack of understanding in the chairman’s office.”