Subject: [NEXTEL-1] PulseOnline: November 2002 - Letter from the President: Regulatory Decisions Must be Made Quickly to Return Industry to Growth

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 19:16:09 -0500

http://pulse.tiaonline.org/print.cfm?id=964

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November 2002 (print version)

Letter from the President

Regulatory Decisions Must be Made Quickly to Return Industry to Growth

TIA and its member companies call for FCC to act on UNE issue

I’d like to use this space to share the rousing comments offered by Rick Roscitt, chairman and CEO of ADC, at the Yankee Group’s Telecom Industry Forum held Oct. 21-22 in Washington, D.C. Rick is an active member of TIA’s CEO Council.

As you know, broadband deployment is TIA’s top priority. Rick’s comments support TIA’s broadband policy initiatives and offer a powerful call to action. Together, TIA and its member companies represent a strong, respected voice in Washington.

Public policy recommendations

(The following is an excerpt from Rick Roscitt’s Oct. 22 full presentation)

As a vendor, I hesitate to bring up the last topic I want to discuss with you -- public policy. Given the tribal warfare within our industry, whatever you say is bound to offend someone -- someone who might very well be a customer. So if I can’t avoid offending someone, I hope at least I can just offend everybody equally.

I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that the Telecom Act is looking like the B-1 bomber of` public policy. The B-1 bomber was rumored to have at least one component made in every Congressional district in the country. There was something for everybody. That was good politics --- but in the end plane didn’t perform up to expectations and had to be reengineered to fit a more compelling mission.

Similarly, the Telecom Act had something for everybody. And that was good politics, but bad public policy. There is too much ambivalent authority built into it. The goals of the Act are unimpeachable -- Vigorous competition and faster introduction of new technology. But it’s been six years, and we’re just beginning to see some results.

Much of the Telecom Act deals with obligations for sharing network capacity. And this is another issue that desperately needs closure, as does the closely related issue of digital rights management. Uncertainty over these issues is putting a chill on innovation. Nobody wants to invest in innovative technology if their investment might be declared public property later. And as we’ve seen over the last six years, it’s brutal to invest in capacity to enter a new market, only to find that the doors to that market aren’t as open to competition as public policy would have you believe.

Since we’re in Washington, I’d like to leave you with a handful of specific public policy recommendations. Many of these recommendations have been made before but we need to drive for decisions and consensus immediately. We have delayed too long while Rome is burning. We should defer to speed in our decisions versus trying to be 100 percent correct on all outcomes.

In the spirit of speed, I would recommend we need to make the following moves as quickly as possible: Number one, let’s recognize that the federal government has to assert its ultimate authority to break up the policy logjam. The Feds may have contributed to that logjam, but they are the viable candidates to get it moving again. Telecom networks are national. The viability of the telecom industry is a national issue. We need national direction, not a patchwork of state-by-state roadblocks.

In that spirit, I would like to see the federal government take on the responsibility for setting UNE-P rates and have the final word on Telric pricing with significant input from state utility commissions. But today’s patchwork quilt of policy making won’t meet the needs of an industry that’s in need of decisive action. 50 state PUCs with an overlay by the FCC and Congress is not a recipe for innovations in public policy, although it’s great for lawyers and lobbyists.

Getting a bit more specific, I would propose that we give the FCC the funding it needs to be effective and stop wasting the FCC’s resources with state by state 271 applications for a commodity service. Let’s either give the FCC the necessary resources to expedite these 271 applications or let’s just open up long distance to all comers and get on with it. We are spending way too much time and energy on a service that is more and more becoming a commodity. The FCC needs to get on with the real business of fostering broadband rollouts, and the NPRMs that support that aim. This industry needs to see an NPRM on Internet access published now. We’ve been waiting for months and it appears that the goal of a ruling by the end of the calendar year is in jeopardy.

In the interim, let’s create a 30-year long bond to accomplish two things: Number one, finance broadband deployments in under-served rural areas by any carrier willing to provide them; and number two, provide financing for competitive local exchange carriers to build and expand their own networks. That would provide the long-term source of capital these companies need compete over their own facilities.

As to the prickly issue of digital rights management -- give the warring industry factions six months to solve this on their own. If they can’t, the Feds step in and create a mandatory policy. I’m quite sure that policy wouldn’t be perfect. On the other hand, it would be a policy, and that’s much better than a policy vacuum.

If we can get over these regulatory and industry decisions quickly, I believe we can at least create the foundation for this industry to reemerge. At the risk of sounding naïve, I’d like to leave you all with the thought that I’m encouraged about the future of this industry of ours. We’re not like the old joke about Rhodes Scholars that says, they have great futures behind them.

Our great future is right where it belongs, in front of us. That future includes some inevitable consolidations among telecom companies. We probably haven’t seen the last bankruptcy. Although I hope we’ve seen the last financial scandal.

But above all else, this is a great industry -- the greatest enabler of economic growth in the history of the world. An industry that touches lives like no other. An industry ready to use the power of digital broadband to advance the agenda of society through innovations like telemedicine and distance learning.

And as long as we don’t give in to a short-term fear of innovation, as long as we don’t retreat into the arms of the ghost universal service past, the greatest years of this industry are very much still ahead of us.

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