Verizon Calls on FCC to Clarify Broadband Policy

Verizon Communications issued another call on the FCC to clarify the broadband policy contained in its recently issued Triennial Review in order to reverse the "dramatic decline in capital investment in America's telecommunications infrastructure."


In a presentation to Cato Institute Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., Tom Tauke, Verizon's senior vice president for public policy & external affairs, said the FCC's order with respect to broadband makes clear that incumbent telcos are not required to lease piece parts of new fiber networks to competitors when the fiber is lit and connected to a single-family house in a market served by a provider that was never part of the Bell System, such as the former GTE. However, does the same no-unbundling-required rule apply in Bell company markets? What's the rule when the customers served live in an apartment building rather than detached housing? Tauke also believes the order is murky on the definition of a business: what's the rule when the customer is a dry cleaner or a drugstore? How about an insurance firm or office at a strip mall?


Verizon is also urging the FCC to clarify that broadband services will be regulated the same way no matter which company offers them, so "that competing broadband infrastructures will be on an equal footing."http://www.verizon.com