Subject: Re: APT Section 706 Petition
Mary G Jones (mgjones@cqi.com)
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:44:51 -0400
Message-Id: <199806182048.QAA15244@raptor.cqi.com> From: "Mary G Jones" <mgjones@cqi.com> To: <roundtable@cni.org> Subject: Re: APT Section 706 Petition Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:44:51 -0400
On Wed, June 17, 1998, Chris Savage <csavage@crblaw.com>
>
> Mary Jones <mgjones@cqi.com> wrote:
> >
> > That leaves me with Sec 706 as the only leverage to try to prod, cajoce,
> > create incentives what have you to get these carriers to start deploying
> > their advanced networks to the home. without using concepts like the
> > social contract, conditions on merger approval and the like, I don't see
> > how we, the public, via FCC and state commissions, have a leg to stand
> > on to get them to install their advanced wires like ISDN, ADSL on the
> > public network.
>
> If competition doesn't work, how about old fashioned command-and-control
> regulation? On behalf of a bunch of ISPs I have suggested to the FCC
> that the FCC simply flat-out *order* LECs to offer a "clean unswitched
> copper" service to allow the ISPs to offer high-bandwidth services to
> customers without having to rely on any telco services or infrastructure
> other than conditioned copper itself. This would be done, in my
> proposal, under the FCC's authority to direct carriers to provide
> service upon reasonable request. Basic, old-fashioned regulation.
>
> I am more optimistic about competition actually working than you are;
> but if competition is not sufficient in the real world to make things
> happen, I am more suspicious than you are about the effectiveness of the
> ersatz competition called "incentive regulation." If there isn't enough
> competition to force ILECs to offer xDSL-type services at fair rates,
> why not just tell them to do it?
Chris: right on. As a former FTC regulator I am all for telling
companies what to do but I just don't know what rubric FCC can use
except withmerger partners who need their approval. Then they can
condition merger approval onbuilding out the public network. But count
me in on anything you can come up with. I have urged FCC to at least
map where the fiber and advanced networks re located so that small
communities and organziations could see where the nearest
advancednetwork was to their location and then see if they can hook on
in some way. Buyt I can't even get FCC to order that disclosure to
themselves. Anyway lets keep thinking on how to use the social contract
notion and design quid pro quos that condition what the carriers want to
do with what we believe theymust do as the price of consent. Mary
Mary G. Jones
<mgjones@cqi.com>
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