New FCC Rules Once Again Thwart Intent of Congress; Institute for Policy Innovation Policy Statement, Experts Available to Media
12/15/2004 5:16:00 PM
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To: National and State Desks
Contact: Sonia Hoffman of the Institute for Policy Innovation, 703-912-5742 or shoffman@ipi.org.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today the Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules for network unbundling obligations of incumbent local phone carriers. Statements issued by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) experts are available below.
Tom Giovanetti, IPI president:
"The FCC has once again struck out in its duty to implement the intent of Congress through the Telecom Act of 1996. The FCC leaves long-outdated UNE-P line-sharing regulations in place for another damaging year, and leaves the door open for individual states to extend UNE-P almost indefinitely by not asserting its preemptive authority and insisting on 'change of law' proceedings at the state level.
"Worse, the FCC seems to have set as a foregone political conclusion that high-capacity business lines would remain under the unbundling regime, and then found an absurd threshold standard for impairment to excuse their conclusion. It is obvious that the business market is highly competitive--obvious except to those who are willfully blind.
"It is unbelievable that almost a decade after the '96 Act, the FCC still has not succeeded in implementing it. It is almost as if the FCC has purposely tried to thwart the intent of Congress. The FCC's failure will result in more lawsuits and continued regulatory uncertainty for telecom companies and investors, and directly thwarts the President's desire to roll out broadband as quickly as possible. It is all the proof Congress should need that it's time for new telecom legislation that not only completely deregulates communications, but also reforms the FCC."
Barry M. Aarons, IPI senior research fellow: "I am disappointed that the FCC has chosen to continue its approach of compartmentalizing the data transmission and distribution industry. In adopting these new rules they have only created more uncertainty by continuing to apply different outdated and harmful regulatory standards to different providers of the same data transmission and distribution.
"Although they took a small step in shedding the antiquated UNE-P requirements they still have not done enough to incentivize the investment and capital formation needed in this industry to create more product development and deployment. This decision will likely eat up more capital in regulatory actions and legal challenges than it will get technology to the consumer."
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The Institute for Policy Innovation is an independent and non- profit, public policy organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and Dallas, Texas. The experts are available for interview.
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