Lock out

The battle over access to multiple dwelling units is reaching a boiling point on Capitol Hill as telecom and housing industry groups fight over whether the FCC has power to open MDUs to competing service providers.

At issue is property owners' practice of granting exclusive long-term rights of access to a single telco or cable operator. The FCC has requested that tenants be allowed to select their own service. Opponents say this conflicts with the rights of property owners and of incumbent service providers to benefit from their investment in in-home wiring.

Jodi Case, manager of ancillary services with AvalonBay Communities, told a House Commerce subcommittee on May 14 that such powers would actually diminish competition. "Property-exclusive contracts enable new providers the time required to recoup the investment required to wire a property," she said. "When multiple telecommunications companies compete toe-to-toe on a single property, new competitors often lack the financial muscle to win."

But Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC's wireless communications bureau, said that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated a concern for the choice of individuals, not owners or providers, and that only facilities-based competition can give providers the incentive to offer that choice.

Currently 15 states have laws mandating competing access, but five others failed to enact such laws this year. "Common sense prevailed" in these cases, said James Arbury, senior vice president of the National Multi-Housing Council. "With 50% to 60% annual turnover on a lot of properties, you would have total chaos, with wires and cables hanging all over the place. In Florida alone, 282 companies are licensed to be alternative providers."

On the cable side, incumbents have been reluctant to share carriage over their networks into the home-a particular problem for converged voice, video and data providers like RCN Corp., whose main targets are MDUs in New York, Boston and Washington. There's usually no problem getting into the junction box in the basement and most buildings offer plenty of space for vertical wires or risers, said RCN Vice President Scott Burnside. The bottleneck comes when the network branches out horizontally on each floor-the "home run" lines that go to the apartments, often in snap-on baseboards or conduits.

"Horizontal space is tight," Burnside said. "The owners say they'd be happy to have you in, but the conduits are full and you can't dig into the walls." RCN wants the FCC to force incumbents to make home runs available for joint use if in-home wiring is inaccessible.

But Time Warner Cable Vice President Lawrence Pestana told the committee, "Any competitor that wishes to compete in a particular building should be required to construct, and pay for its own facilities"-including home run wiring.