Exciting times in Washington
FCC rulemakings gives us respite from sex, lies and videotape.
By Alan Pearce
ashington is confronting one of its most exciting,
eventful and potentially cataclysmic periods of its history. No,
this is not about impeachment or high crimes and
misdemeanors, but about telecommunications industry
policymaking and the FCC.
The FCC has just launched its Advanced Networks Inquiry and Rulemaking,
which will focus significant and intense policymaking and political attention on
the availability of advanced telecommunications services for all Americans.
Then, coming soon (some time this fall or winter), the FCC will launch yet
another landmark rulemaking, the Alternative Networks proceeding.
Advanced Networks policy initiative
The Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 required the FCC to initiate a
proceeding focusing on high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications
systems by August 1998. The rulemaking brings together the following
integrally linked and related issues:
The deployment of broadband technologies. Is the U.S. moving from a
reliance on circuit switching to a reliance on packet switching? Will it
evolve from one technology to another, or will the technologies co-exist?
The pervasive influence of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Should packet switched and Internet telephony be regulated? There are
an increasing number of voices insisting that Internet service providers
(ISPs) pay a share of the Universal Service Fund, designed in part to
guarantee Internet and Web access for all U.S. schoolchildren.
What level of competition can be expected as a consequence of the
current wave of merger and acquisition activity in both the services and
equipment segments of the industry?
How can policymakers encourage the regional Bell operating companies
(RBOCs) to upgrade their networks so that they can offer broadband,
high-speed services at affordable prices without chilling the onset of
meaningful local exchange competition?
Even before the rulemaking was launched in early August, the FCC had
embarked on an intensive fact-finding mission on the availability of advanced
telecommunications services in the U.S. The findings will be sent to Congress in
February 1999-just after the start of the 106th Congress. Unfortunately,
Congress may be overly preoccupied with that other issue. Fortunately, it is the
rulemaking-not the report to Congress-that will give the industry a much
needed roadmap to the future. Not surprisingly, the RBOCs will receive much
policy-making attention. Because there is perceived to be a growing need to
free the Bells in business, in technology deployment, and in regulation so that
they have the necessary incentives to compete in the area of advanced
telecommunications networks.
The FCC is looking for a new regulatory model as the country evolves from a
ubiquitous public switched telecommunications network based on voice, to a
series of ubiquitous, universal, seamless, high-speed, broadband networks.
In short, the RBOCs want to turn their copper into gold via digital subscriber
line (DSL) technologies. As a result, everyone in the industry should be
watching the FCC policy as it develops over the next six months.
Intensive lobbying is already taking place-at the FCC and on Capitol Hill.
Some of it is coming from unexpected quarters and is directed against
emerging, as opposed to incumbent, companies. For example, Steve Case, the
dynamic head of America On Line (AOL), is canvassing the FCC to make
sure that @Home is subjected to the same access, unbundling and co-location
rules that are imposed on the RBOCs. Naturally, @Home vigorously opposes
AOL's lobbying.
The competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and the interexchange
carriers (IXCs) have formed an alliance (yet again) to put more-rather than
fewer-regulatory restrictions on their joint enemies, the RBOCs.
Alternative networks
Second on the FCC's agenda is the Alternative Networks Rulemaking, coming
soon from the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. The rulemaking,
according to senior FCC staff, will be transport-neutral; the goal is to provide
positive incentives to spur the growth and rapid deployment of alternative
networks.
Alternative networks are hybrid wireless, wireline, CATV, and satellite
networks that give customers cost-efficient network choices. The Bureau wants
to stimulate competition via new technologies and new networks. This
rulemaking will be launched later this year or, more likely, early next year.
Each of these rulemakings will have a profound effect on how future business is
conducted. They promise to change the landscape of the industry as we careen
into the third millennium, which will mark the beginning of an age where our
economic, political, educational and social lives depend on telecommunications.
As a result, none of us can ignore the policymaking and political process
underway in Washington. |
