[1st-mile-nm] FCC Gets Set to Relax Telecom Unbundling Regulations

[Richard Lowenberg]

It would be informative to hear from NM CLECs, ISPs or others here,
on the potential implications and impacts of this pending FCC action.

RL
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FCC Gets Set to Relax Telecom Unbundling Regulations

7/9/19  by Joan Engebretson

https://www.telecompetitor.com/fcc-gets-set-to-relax-telecom-unbundling-regulations

The FCC took the first steps toward relaxing telecom unbundling 
regulations on voice services last week when FCC Chairman Ajit Pai 
circulated a draft order that would eliminate certain requirements for 
incumbent carriers.

If the order is adopted, incumbents would no longer be required to 
provide their competitors with analog voice-grade copper loops on an 
unbundled basis at regulated rates. In addition, the incumbents would 
not have to make certain services that they provide at retail available 
for resale at regulated rates. According to an FCC backgrounder 
document, the order calls for a three-year transition period to provide 
“a seamless move” for competitive carriers and their end-user customers 
to “alternative voice service arrangements.”

The order would “not grant forbearance from regulatory obligations 
governing broadband networks,” the FCC said in the backgrounder. This 
comment appears to indicate that incumbents would still be required to 
offer unbundled copper loops to competitors that want to add their own 
transport equipment to the loops to support DSL services.

USTelecom Forbearance Petition

As the FCC explains, the requirements that the commission may relax were 
designed to create competition at a time when incumbent carriers 
dominated the telecom service market.

“More than two decades later, the communications marketplace has 
transformed,” the FCC said. “Consumers are migrating away from plain old 
telephone services provided over copper wires by their local telephone 
company toward newer, any-distance voice services provided over 
next-generation networks by cable, mobile and fixed wireless, and 
over-the-top VoIP providers.”

The draft order circulated last week is one of several steps that the 
commission has taken in response to a forbearance petition filed 
previously by incumbent carrier organization USTelecom. The commission 
will vote later this week on a separate order triggered by the USTelecom 
petition that would grant price cap carriers relief from ex ante pricing 
regulation of their lower speed time division multiplexed (TDM) 
transport business data services nationwide. Commissioners also will 
vote on a memorandum opinion and order that would partially grant

  USTelecom’s request for forbearance from DS-1 and DS-3 transport 
unbundling obligations for price cap carriers.

As part of its forbearance petition, USTelecom initially asked for 
relief from unbundling dark fiber but withdrew that request in June.



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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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