FCC to Give Copper Retirement Rules a Haircut

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Several telcos have asked the FCC to speed up and streamline the copper retirement process as they transition to fiber networks. The Commission will vote on those pleas Thursday.

CenturyLink recently lobbied the agency about the issue. “For services with no customers, the Commission should, at a minimum, shorten the timeframe that a carrier must demonstrate that it had no customers to 60 days, as proposed in the Notice, or even shorter. Ultimately, no application should be required at all, but, on an interim basis, the Commission should at least shorten these timelines,” the company said in a filing. 

For copper retirement and network disclosures, CenturyLink, the latest telco to voice its opinion, joining Verizon and AT&T on the issue, wants the FCC to return to a 90-day notice period, saying “180 days is simply too long to accommodate some network upgrades, especially given the short construction season in many parts of the country.”

Now, incumbent local exchange carriers must provide notice to competitive local exchange carrier wholesale customers to deliver voice and Ethernet over copper services to business customers. Under the FCC’s proposal, incumbent carriers could retire copper networks and replace them with fiber without prior approval from the Commission, but only if no service is impaired, reduced or discontinued.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai discussed the copper retirement issue during a speech at the Reason Media Awards last week in New York City. “Some of these copper lines have been in the ground for a century. They’re nowhere near as resilient or robust as fiber. But our rules too often still demand that companies maintain those fading networks,” said Pai. He defined the agency’s copper retirement rules as “red tape” that needs to be cut.

November 15, 2017

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