Coalition challenges AT&T special access rates

A group of competitive carriers and public interest groups calling themselves the NoChokePoints Coalition is asking the FCC to step in to prevent new pricing from AT&T for special access lines that was scheduled to go into effect this week.

AT&T says the pricing isn’t new but instead represents a return to the levels that were in effect prior to the company’s merger with BellSouth in 2006. A condition of the merger was to reduce prices for special access through June 30, 2010.

According to Comptel, the competitive carrier association that also opposes the rate increase, the difference in pricing could be as high as 30%.

“Despite all the current efforts to incent broadband deployment and expand access to these essential services, the FCC continues to allow companies with dominant market power to arbitrarily raise the rates that other carriers must pay for special access services,” said Jerry James, CEO of Comptel, in a statement. “The Commission has had ample opportunity to take a fresh look at its pricing rules for special access services, and now is the time to act. By revamping its rules to ensure just and reasonable rates for special access, the FCC could have another means for ensuring widespread broadband access and providing further incentives for job growth, economic development and innovation in the U.S.”

In a blog, Frank Simone, assistant vice president for federal regulatory for AT&T, said the competitive carriers were using the expiration date of the price concessions as an excuse to ask the government to impose price controls. “Why aren’t the companies that are complaining about our special access prices instead focused on getting their own fiber into buildings they want to serve?” he wrote.

NoChokePoints members include Sprint, Public Knowledge, Clearwire, XO Communications, U.S. Cellular, Covad, TW Telecom and the New America Foundation.