Windstream Presses FCC To Ensure Unbundled DS1, DS3 Loops; Scholar Issues Special Access Paper
The FCC should "confirm the continued availability of unbundled DS1 and DS3 copper loops," Windstream said Tuesday (unbundled ILEC loops must be made available to competitors at wholesale discounts). In meetings and calls with FCC officials, "Windstream urged the Commission…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
to grant Windstream’s declaratory ruling petition in order to help ensure that the current competition options available to small business, government, and nonprofit customers of dedicated services will be unaffected by a change in transmission protocol from TDM to IP or by the use of fiber," the company said in a filing in docket 13-5. "As Windstream had highlighted when it filed its petition, the availability of unbundled DS1 and DS3 capacity loops was a foundational premise and justification for the Commission’s prior grants of forbearance with respect to specified packet-based services. The time is ripe for the Commission to act on disputes regarding these loops." Windstream noted various state regulatory commissions had supported its petition, including the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (see 1603140070). Meanwhile, Anna-Maria Kovacs, a visiting senior policy scholar at Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, said in a study that CLECs and cable companies competing in the special access market are "in good financial health," while "ILECs' low cash flows reflect the continuously increasing cost of sustaining a ubiquitous network" serving just "a third of the lines for which it was engineered."