The blood runs cold

Similar to the religious wars that have afflicted countries for centuries, the general disdain that competitive local exchange carriers and incumbents have for each other runs deep. That dislike may be warranted at times, but one thing is certain: Peace and harmony between the two groups doesn't appear anywhere in sight.

The FCC has a strong governing power over the incumbents as the commission tries to give competition a fair shot, but the competitive providers want more.

CLECs want more regulations and guidelines for incumbents as they build out their networks. The Association for Local Telecommunications Services recently launched a campaign to "open up the networks" and went to the FCC to report problems competitive carriers face with incumbents. Specifically, the group wants radical changes made to the "competitive access to next generation remote terminals." ALTS believes incumbents are outwardly seeking loopholes in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to shut out competition completely.

"We have a lot of concern about the way the Bells are designing their networks, and we are very concerned about co-location," said John Windhausen, ALTS president. "The ILECs have staked out a legal position to [deny] co-location requests that are being submitted to them after the date of the court decision." That decision, involving GTE and co-location regulations, essentially enables incumbents to determine when it is "necessary" to allow co-location.

ALTS is dismayed by the incumbent LECs' (ILECs) assurances to prohibit similar co-location requests received after the court's decision was issued on March 17 and before the FCC issues a remand decision, said Jonathan Askin, general counsel for ALTS.

Although competitive providers believe that the FCC and state regulators have done a lot of work to level the playing field between competitors and incumbents, "there is still a long way to go," Windhausen said.

To that end, ALTS has submitted two filings with the FCC: one regarding the provisioning of loops and the other regarding CLECs' concerns with co-location.

"We have to redirect [the FCC] to fill the loopholes the ILECs have found, where the regulations are not written as tightly as they should be. Certain enforcement mechanisms must be put in place," Askin said.

One of the loopholes ALTS cites is loop provisioning intervals. That is where the incumbents are dragging their feet the most, Askin said. Conditioning charges are another trouble spot because ILECs use these to stifle competition, Askin said.

"Simply put, there are ways to deploy fiber [and new technologies] that are pro-competition and non-competition," Askin said. "Theirs is non-competitive."

Incumbents display a consistent pattern of action to limit the service offerings of competitors, said Jason Oxman, senior counsel for Covad Communications.

"The delayed time period of provisioning loops is a brilliant way to keep customers for themselves," Oxman said. "We have to wait months, whereas Bell Atlantic is advertising to their customers that they will turn up service in seven days. That's faster than we can get a loop."

Bell Atlantic claims those accusations are false and unwarranted.

"We respectfully disagree," said a Bell Atlantic spokesman. "We treat [competitive providers] no differently than we do our retail customers. They, too, are our customers, and we continue to treat them as such."

Under federal law, Bell Atlantic must provision lines for CLECs within the same time interval - or in less time - than it does for its retail customers, the spokesman said, although he added that he cannot rule out the possibility that in one instance, there might have been a provisioning delay.

By stalling, incumbents can delay and remonopolize in numerous ways, said Fran Coleman, vice president of regulatory affairs for Mpower Communications. "They know they will have a comparatively small penalty to pay in contrast to the benefits they will reap by thwarting us," Coleman said.

Many of the goals of the ALTS initiative are directed at SBC Communications' Project Pronto. SBC's $6 billion plan involves the deployment of remote terminals within its territory to reach customers that cannot currently get DSL because of the technology's distance limitations. The remote terminals, which make the transition from copper to fiber facilities, will be connected to SBC central offices through fiber optic feeder facilities.

SBC asked the Common Carrier Bureau to consider how ownership of the new Project Pronto assets should be handled and whether they should be owned by SBC's Advanced Services affiliates to comply with merger conditions. It was later determined that Project Pronto would fall under the incumbent's realm. SBC will own the "combination plugs/cards" that enable the splitting of voice and data signals and the optical concentration devices, which aggregate traffic in the CO. That equipment will be made available for CLEC use, SBC claims.

But in the CLEC proceeding, the group asked the FCC to regulate the design and deployment of the network - more specifically, SBC's network.

"They are designing it to keep us out," Mpower's Coleman said.

ALTS argues that SBC's remote terminals will not accommodate CLECs' connections in some cases and that competitive providers will be limited to the technologies SBC chooses to deploy such as asymmetrical DSL (ADSL).

But SBC sees things differently. "Although we are very willing to work with the CLECs, we don't feel [that] we need to submit our network expansion plans for their approval," said Marian Dyer, vice president of federal regulatory for SBC. "Project Pronto is about adding capacity to our network and reaching more customers, which will only benefit the CLECs. Project Pronto is in no way aimed at shutting them out. They wouldn't be able to reach these [new] customers without us."

The ALTS complaint glosses over the fact that similar cabinets, vaults and huts exist today in the SBC network, Dyer said (see sidebar). CLECs will simply be able to serve more customers, she said. As vendors develop new technologies and capabilities, SBC plans to upgrade the network and deploy viable technologies, she said.

"We are not spending $6 billion to have ADSL be the last service offered out of it," Dyer said. "It is just the start."

Competitive local exchange carriers and incumbents are playing tug-of-war with demands and assertions to further their own particular causes.

The Association for Local Telecommunications Services claims that incumbents can architect their networks in ways that are supportive or non-supportive of competition. ALTS believes the latter is happening.

The group wants incumbents to deploy larger cabinets to allow competitors access at remote terminal sites and to allow competitors to install alternative line cards in to support technologies other than the incumbent's equipment, said Jonathan Askin, general counsel with ALTS.

SBC Communications charges that the ALTS demands are unrealistic. With its Project Pronto initiative, SBC's network is being designed in the only way economically possible, said Marian Dyer, vice president of federal regulatory at SBC.

"We are using a shared architecture, which is the only way to go, and [it] doesn't shut out competition," she said. "The whole idea behind the broadband service offering we have is to try to make as much of that shared architecture available to any company that wants to provide services."

Vendors are designing cabinets to serve a number of households in a given area, Dyer said. "There are huts and [vaults] that naturally have more space, and about 40% of our access lines go through those, not cabinets," she said.

Those facilities will have plenty of space, she said, and as part of Project Pronto, SBC is voluntarily making those facilities bigger. But the way cabinets are manufactured can present problems, Dyer said. "There is space available - in some but not all - [remote terminals], and we are voluntarily increasing that space where feasible to do so."

CLECs can buy their own cabinets and place them next to SBC's cabinets so they can connect and co-locate in that way.

Another misconception held by CLECs is that a card alone can provide a service, Dyer said. A card is just a component in a system, and there are a lot of other factors to grapple with, she said.

"They ask, `Can I plug my card into your box?' Well you could, but it wouldn't work unless it goes with the exact same specifications that the vendor has used," Dyer said. "It sounds logical to get a different card with a different capability and plug it into your slot. The problem is, it just doesn't work that way."