SBC Sees Unbundling Rules 'Devastating' For Broadband

Communications Today, July 23, 2002

Railing against federal rules that it claims inhibit broadband investment and deployment, Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) SBC Communications [SBC] said the Federal Communications Commission's UNE-Platform policy is "devastating" to incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs).

SBC is pressing the FCC to trash "regulations that force incumbent local exchange [ILECs] to sell portions of their telecommunications facilities that are available from other sources to competitors at bargain prices and to use the so-called UNE-P to cherry-pick only the most profitable customers without investing any capital and without deploying any facilities or networks."

In its comments to the commission, SBC urged the agency to embrace policies regulating unbundled network elements (UNEs) that will "encourage true facilities-based competition and help improve the health of the telecommunications industry." While the FCC adopted the UNE-P regulations with the best of intentions, it "has had devastating, if unintended consequences," SBC said in its filing. "It gives the appearance of competition, but the socalled UNE-P competitors rely entirely on a cherry-picking strategy intended to serve only the most profitable customers. The UNE-P is, at the end of the day, simply a wealth transfer from incumbent facilities-based providers to companies that deploy and maintain no facilities or networks [and] that bring no competitive benefits to typical residential consumers."