A California firm wants the FCC to reverse a Trump-era decision to loosen rules that require dominant local telecoms to unbundle and resell fiber networks to make room for competitors. Sonic Telecom said in a petition this week the deregulatory move deters, rather than promotes, fiber-to-the-home infrastructure builds using certain networks.
The agency relaxed the rules in October. The Commission should revisit the changes because two unbundled network elements are crucial to the rapid expansion of competing fiber networks, Sonic asserts, according to Law360. The pandemic highlights the need for a faster fiber race in urban areas, Sonic said in the filing; it referred specifically to unbundled dark fiber within a half mile of fiber.
“The remote learning during the pandemic has dispelled the myth that the commission need only promote broadband and fiber build out to rural and less densely populated areas,” Sonic told the Commission. “Commission policies need to spur deployment to underserved and unserved communities in urbanized areas, too.”
The unbundling rules date to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, when local telephone companies had monopoly power and lawmakers wanted to force them to let smaller telecoms use elements of their infrastructure. But recently, the agency explored whether the rules were outmoded.
At least one trade group, USTelecom, criticized Sonic’s position, citing a private-sector deal reached last year to handle unbundling. USTelecom said that deal, which Sonic didn’t sign, was reached after “rigorous debate” and included more than a dozen of its members.
That agreement delivered “connectivity benefits for consumers and…business certainty for a cross section of broadband providers,” a spokesperson for USTelecom told Law360 in a statement. That’s why the FCC endorsed it, according to the trade association.
Sonic CEO Dane Jasper doesn’t agree. He noted the industry settlement didn’t encompass all the affected builders or consumers. “Individualized comment filings from over 10,000 consumers were part of the record,” according to Jasper. He added: “The petition overwhelmingly demonstrates lack of FTTH and adequate broadband to consumers in areas impacted by the order.”
The USTelecom spokesperson said of the Sonic petition, “At the 11th hour a single company is seeking to upend this historic agreement and clog the FCC’s busy docket on what is a settled matter. That is their right, but we have a solid framework in place that updated the unbundling rules for today’s competitive marketplace.”
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