FCC Ruling Falls Short
The Federal Communications Commission last month handed Regional Bell Operating Companies a regulatory windfall that Congress refused to confer, despite three years of aggressive and expensive RBOC lobbying. Having secured from appointed bureaucrats greater changes than the nation's elected representatives were willing to consider, logically the RBOCs should be pleased with their win. But they're not; they plan to sue the FCC.
In a jumbled vote dividing the five FCC commissioners in myriad ways, the agency decided Feb. 20 to let RBOCs effectively bar rivals from using new, broadband facilities deployed in the local telecommunications network.
In addition, in an unanticipated development for ISPs - one that commissioners themselves conceded was a trade-off for maintaining the status quo in voice competition - RBOCs in three years will no longer have to share the data delivery portion of their legacy copper wire with broadband carriers. The move came as a defeat for FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who opposed the decision.
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