Draft FCC Special Access Order Would Require New Data Collection
A draft FCC order on special access would introduce mandatory data collection, agency officials said. It comes seven years after the commission opened a proceeding to reform its 1999 special access pricing flexibility rules. There will be far more kinds of data sought than the simple collocation metric used in the 1999 proceeding, FCC officials said. The agency intends to suspend consideration of pricing flexibility petitions pending development of a new framework, the officials said. Special access circuits are dedicated data connections often used by businesses, and as backhaul for wireless sites.
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The current pricing flexibility rules operate automatically and in a mechanistic way, the officials said, using certain triggers to estimate the presence of competition. Once an incumbent provider shows the existence of the triggering amounts, the ILEC gets deregulation throughout the metropolitan statistical area. There’s longstanding agreement between all of the major providers, as well as those who consume the services, that the system doesn’t work as intended, the officials said. Some stakeholders think the rules grant relief prematurely before actual competition exists, while others argue the current rules perpetuate unnecessary regulations in areas that are already competitive.
The order “lays out a path to reform and modernize the Commission’s rules for special access services,” a commission official said. “There is widespread agreement that the existing framework is broken.” The reforms will aim to protect competition; ensure access to robust, affordable broadband for small business, mobile providers, and others; and eliminate regulations where evidence of competition exists, the official said.
The order would put on hold pending petitions by AT&T for pricing flexibility in the San Francisco/Oakland and San Antonio MSAs; and by Windstream in the Lincoln, Neb., Tulsa, Okla., and Houston MSAs, FCC officials said. As an example of the unintuitive result of current rules, an FCC official pointed to special access services in Manhattan, which are still regulated even though it’s arguably the most competitive place in the country. In contrast, outlying areas within certain MSAs get deregulated even where it seems unlikely there is competition.
A recent Georgetown University study discussed the importance of current data in the special access proceeding, arguing that many claims in the special access docket rely on 2007 data that was “flawed even at the time” and is “obsolete now.” Before the FCC acts on special access, “it needs data that will enable it to understand the market, particularly the fiber-based IP and Ethernet market that is evolving to replace the obsolete TDM world,” Professor Anna-Maria Kovacs wrote (http://xrl.us/bnack6).