CLECs angered by lack of FCC invite

FCC-mediated negotiations between the four RBOCs with AT&T and MCI over wholesale interconnection during the Memorial Day holiday weekend resulted in little progress, but the circumstances of the meeting angered a number of competitive carriers that wanted to be included.

John Windhausen, president of the Association of Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS), said RBOCs decided they did not want his facilities-based members to participate in the four-day negotiating session.

"That was a little surprising, in that they say they want facilities-based competitors," Windhausen said. "What was more surprising is that the FCC backed them up."

CompTel/Ascent President and CEO Russell Frisby said although AT&T and MCI are the largest CLECs, their size and business plans prevent them from being models for the rest of the competitive industry. "AT&T and MCI are operated on a much different scale than most CLECs," Frisby said. "There are myriad reasons why a deal could work for AT&T and MCI but not anybody else."

Indeed, Qwest Communications and MCI announced an agreement, but its emphasis on residential customers and UNE-P mean it probably will not serve as a template for ALTS members that primarily use their own facilities to target business customers, Windhausen said.

"It [the Qwest-MCI deal] doesn’t work for anybody else that we know of," Windhausen said. Representatives for both Qwest and MCI said almost all the work was done on the agreement before the parties arrived at the FCC-called negotiations in Washington, D.C. beginning Friday, with only "fine tuning" accomplished in the nation’s capital, according to Steve Davis, Qwest’s senior vice president of public policy.

"Absent the five-week head start [in private mediated sessions with MCI], I do not believe we would have been able to get a deal done," Davis said.

Certainly no one else did, as no other deals were announced and little progress was acknowledged by any of the other participating parties.

Davis said Qwest’s talks with AT&T during the weekend "weren’t very fruitful." AT&T was more blunt, describing the negotiating session as "failed" while noting that its "numerous proposals" to transition from UNE-P to a facilities-based strategy were rejected by the RBOCs.

"The only agreement that most of the Bell monopolies seemed interested in striking was one that increased prices substantially on consumers and small businesses immediately," an AT&T spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

Tom Tauke, Verizon’s executive vice president of public affairs, said the four-day negotiation session allowed the parties to clarify their positions and "there was some movement." But two government positions have "frustrated" negotiations, he said.

"As long as the government holds out the hope of preserving the status quo [by appealing UNE rules to the Supreme Court], it is disappointing but hardly surprising that AT&T and MCI would delay concluding commercial agreements," Tauke said in a prepared statement.

Another problem is the pick-and-choose rule, which allows CLECs to opt in to any portion of an interconnection agreement it likes, Tauke said.

"The pick-and-choose procedure, sanctioned under earlier regulation, lets a company sit on the sidelines now hoping that later it will be able to take advantage of the best terms of earlier agreements with other companies, again removing the incentive for any early commercial agreement," Tauke said in a prepared statement.

Herschel Abbott, BellSouth’s vice president of governmental affairs, said the wholesale negotiations proved that the issues are "far more complex" than the parties simply reaching agreement on "a magic number."

All parties said they remain committed to the negotiating process, although the stay of the appeals court order that would eliminate most UNE rules will be lifted on June 16, unless a stay extension