No Further Conspiracy Needed

Sue Ashdown says that Bell lobbying alone was sufficient to produce the FCC's recent, strange decision.

[Response to Editorial: States' Rights Killed My ISP from March 13, 2003.]

[March 18, 2003]

Dear Editors:

"States' Rights"? I disagree. The broadband legislation that is being promoted throughout SBC and BellSouth territory was greased last year, well ahead of the FCC decision. That is nothing more than the Bells covering their bets three times (at the Congressional, FCC, and state levels). With more money than God, why not? SBC started in its puppet state (Oklahoma), in the 2002 legislature, took the victory to the state legislative conferences in the summer and wham! Tauzin-Dingell mutated into a state bill instead of a federal one.

The state commissions have always been deeply involved in arbtrating interconnection agreements and setting TELRIC rates, so it's not as if they are suddenly starting with a blank slate and no idea what they're doing. Certain state commissions are relatively hopeless, it's true—Colorado for one, South Carolina for another—but NARUC (the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) was pushing the FCC not to eliminate the states authority, and in this sense, the vote was a victory for them.

In fact, that's the prime illustration of why "states' rights" is a mischaracterization of the issue. This was not about wresting power away from the FCC and transferring it to the state commissions. The state commissions already had the power. This was about someone regulating interconnection or no one. Had the vote gone the other way, back to the FCC, Powell's vision of UNE-P was, quite simply, to eliminate it. This would have been disastrous for ISPs because they so clearly need competitive telecom supply. UNE-P is an integral part of the business of the many CLECs they buy from.

A broader competitive marketplace is what's needed, not a smaller one, so whatever it takes to break the back of the monopoly that has already successfully destroyed many ISPs and confined into a narrowband ghetto those who remain, is something ISPs should support.

I agree that a strong FCC decision upholding UNE-P would have been far less of a nightmare to deal with than 51 Commissions (not including Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who will also address the issue). But it wasn't going to happen. And the one benefit of local jurisdiction is that it's a lot easier and less costly for an ISP to weigh in at their local utility commission, and with their local press and legislature, than it is for them to do that in Washington.

I hope that they will, and I expect to spend a great deal of my time in the coming months helping them do that in the most effective way.

Regards,

Sue Ashdown, Executive Director,
American ISP Association