Rivals Push FCC to Restrict Telco BDS Pricing Practices; ACA Seeks 'Light Touch'

filing posted Thursday in docket 16-143 on the company's arguments to a Wireline Bureau official. To limit ILEC opportunities to use circuit-portability conditions to lock up BDS demand, the commission should bar incumbents "from setting the terms of circuit-specific plans in non-competitive areas at longer than two years," said Level 3, arguing customers should be allowed at the end of the term to pay the same price on a month-to-month basis. ILECs should be prohibited from imposing "terms for volume commitment plans in excess of one year in non-competitive areas," it said. Level 3 also asked the FCC to apply tariff filing duties to ILEC commercial agreements for provisioning circuit-based and packet-based dedicated services "in non-competitive areas." It said some ILECs weren't filing agreements, preventing efforts to uncover unreasonable discrimination. Level 3 asked the agency to prevent market power abuse by prohibiting ILECs from "tying" BDS sales "in non-competitive markets to the sales of other products." It also urged the FCC to ensure protections adopted this spring and recommended in the filing take effect as soon as possible, including a "fresh look" proposal to give customers new rights to avoid volume shortfall penalties and early termination fees. Separately, Level 3's counsel told Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero that BDS regulation would be more effective "if it includes price caps and tariffs." An FCC Further NPRM sought comment on eliminating BDS tariffs (see 1604280057). Level 3 would support a benchmark pricing regime to constrain BDS prices "in non-competitive areas," but a collective effort to develop such a proposal has so far been unsuccessful, it said, calling price-cap regulation and tariffs "far superior" to available benchmark options. Other CLECs this week also summarized BDS-related discussions: Windstream focused on its proposals for overseeing "wholesale Ethernet last-mile inputs"; Granite Telecommunications cited concerns about the FCC's decision to link a wholesale voice platform's termination to the issuance of new BDS rules; and U.S. TelePacific discussed a bureau decision suspending AT&T tariff filings (see 1607150062). The American Cable Association and members urged an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn "to continue the FCC’s traditional light touch approach to regulating competitive providers." They said small cable operators invested more than $300 million annually to deploy BDS facilities, but cable BDS rate regulation "would create significant disincentives" to invest and could hamstring smaller providers in particular.