TIA: capex cuts cripple quality

Fiber Optics Weekly Update, Nov 22, 2002

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) hand delivered to the four members of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) a letter to Chairman Michael Powell with a new paper enclosed entitled Investment, Capital Spending and Service Quality in US Telecommunications Networks: A Symbiotic Relationship."

In his letter, TIA President Matthew J. Flanigan suggests to Chairman Powell that "special priority should be given to maintaining the availability, reliability and integrity of the telecommunications utility." Flanigan further explains that the documented information in the enclosed TIA paper on the relationship between investment, capital expenditures (capex) in infrastructure equipment, and service quality means that the current trend of continuing capex reductions "should cause alarm bells to go off among regulators at every level," including in the states, where service quality issues rightfully are a high priority. In other words, the TIA paper demonstrates a direct and irrefutable relationship between levels of network investment and service quality.

Because the regulatory environment must strike a proper balance between regulation in the service of the public interest and the promotion of investment, innovation and shareholder value, TIA also filed the paper in the FCC's Triennial Review of the Unbundling Rules proceeding. TIA and the High Tech Broadband Coalition, of which the association is a founding member, have asked the FCC to determine that the unbundling rules under Section 251 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 do not apply to new, last mile broadband facilities, including fiber and digital subscriber line (DSL) and successor electronics deployed on the customer side of the central office.