Windstream, Granite Seek FCC Help on Wholesale Access in TDM Discontinuances
Windstream and Granite Telecommunications urged the FCC to ensure wholesale access on reasonable terms as incumbent telcos seek to retire legacy TDM-based services. The FCC could act on related business data service (BDS) regulation in April or May, an industry…
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official told us Thursday, echoing comments from others earlier this week (see 1703140046). The commission appears headed in a deregulatory direction, but the degree of relief for incumbent telcos remains unclear, the official said. Windstream voiced concern that small businesses could "be harmed by steps to scale back or even eliminate existing last-mile access guardrails." The safeguards include "regulation of TDM-based special access and the Technology Transitions requirement that ILECs, as a condition of discontinuing a TDM-based service, provide competitive carriers reasonably comparable wholesale access to the [IP-based] replacement service on reasonably comparable rates, terms, and conditions," said a company filing posted Thursday in docket 05-25 and others on a meeting with Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide. "Windstream reiterated that competitive providers need to purchase last-mile connectivity to many locations because it often is not economical to overbuild last-mile facilities, particularly to consumers with business data services demand at or below 50 Mbps." It said the last-mile access is needed to give many small businesses, government entities, rural healthcare networks, schools, and libraries competitive BDS options, and said it wants to work with the commission "to develop a solution that will not strand" such customers. In a filing on its discussions with aides to Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Granite "discussed the importance of maintaining a reasonable transition timeframe for the interim rule that incumbent LECs seeking Section 214 authority to discontinue a TDM-based commercial wholesale platform voice service that is currently used as a wholesale input by competitive carriers must provide competitive carriers with reasonably comparable access on reasonably comparable rates, terms, and conditions." A Charter Communications filing said its representatives met with FCC staff and repeated "private carriage" arguments and discussed the competitive landscape facing cable BDS providers.