HIGH FIBER TIME

While most in the telecom world called the Federal Communications Commission's unbundled network element decision a win for AT&T and WorldCom, the part of the order that may have the most lasting effect is the commission's decision to free RBOCs from unbundling requirements on new fiber facilities.

The FCC didn't give the RBOCs everything they lobbied for — namely, the elimination of switching from the UNE list on a national level. Instead, that fight will shift to state capitals where carriers on both sides of the issue will get 51 more opportunities to file lawsuits.

But just as important is the commission's ruling that gives incumbent LECs unfettered access to their own fiber-in-the-loop networks and kills off the line sharing provisions, providing a small salve to heal RBOC wounds. It couldn't have come at a better time.

And the final vote is certainly a bitter political defeat for FCC Chairman Michael Powell, though greater political figures have come back from worse drubbings. Not being able to control one Republican commissioner — whose most recent job stint was working for a maverick Republican commissioner — won't stain a career.

As spring, the season of renewal, dawns across the U.S., look for the RBOCs to start firing up their long-dormant Ditch Witches in an effort to start plowing fiber into every neighborhood possible. Out with the old copper, in with the new fiber. Maybe that's a little optimistic, but it's not unreasonable.

The RBOCs got what they wanted out of the broadband part of the order. Now it's time to back up the rhetoric with real action. The Bell companies complained bitterly throughout the entire UNE process that the rules adopted after the Telecom Act of 1996 provided no economic incentive to deploy broadband facilities. One wonders if it weren't for cable competitors getting a jump-start in the broadband market whether DSL-based Internet access would even exist.

Fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-curb deployments have been languishing, in large part because of fears that once such networks were built, they would be swamped by competitive ISPs looking for a free ride on the ultimate broadband pipe. In the meantime, the technology and economic case has fermented.

The fears of ILECs everywhere have now been erased, and U.S. consumers should be able to look forward to increased fiber penetration, more attractive DSL offerings, and an explosion of new applications that will use the new ILEC-only pipes. U.S. users, who have fallen behind Korean and Canadian users in percentage of the population with broadband connections, deserve as much. Now the RBOCs just need to step up.