AW and all: FCC to Ease Rules on Data Networks
For Local Phone-Service Providers
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
interactive.wsj.com
Excerpts:
WASHINGTON -- In an effort to encourage development of high-speed Internet networks, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to ease some competitive requirements on the nation's heavily regulated local phone carriers.
The FCC requires local carriers, the so-called Baby Bells, to sell use of their telephone lines to competitors. Because the local phone network controlled by the Bells is impossible to replicate, competitors need to lease parts of that network to begin offering services under the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
Under a proposal that the commission will probably approve next month, new high-speed data networks won't be subject to those requirements as long as the local carriers create separate affiliates to provide the service, FCC officials said. By requiring these networks to be set up independently, the commission hopes to create a marketplace in which competitors get off on an equal footing.
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Heather Burnett Gold, president of the Association for Local Telecommunications Services, a trade group, said the Bells "haven't lived up to their end of the bargain with the Telecom Act. I see no reason why they should be rewarded."
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