ACT 2: DEJA VU

This month, the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, a group of non-carrier Fortune 500 companies that spend more than $2 billion per year collectively on telecom services, complained to the FCC of an expected rise in prices for special access telecom services following the merger of SBC and AT&T. The Telecom Act of 1996 never spawned sufficient competition in this market, the group said, claiming SBC's special access rate of return has climbed from less than 13% in 1996 to more than 76% last year. The group suggested lowering SBC's return to 11.25% in the interim and setting annual price caps going forward. Thus, as we approach the 10-year anniversary of the Telecom Act, we find ourselves resurrecting a regulated monopoly. The outcry from groups like the AHTUC should fuel efforts to pen a Telecom Act II: Revenge of the CLECs (to be followed inevitably by Act III: This Time It's Personal). As legislators ponder how they might get their second act together, one wonders if the notion of structural network separation will gain more serious attention this time around as a road not taken, especially as microcosmic efforts in Utah and other small towns prove the viability of the model. Getting structural separation past the moneyed political might of major carriers seems impossible, of course. But as the AHTUC is showing, telecom consumers have their own moneyed political might as well.