UPDATE FCC Chairman Wheeler’s updated proposal to revise regulation of Business Data Services (BDS) is still being circulated to his colleagues for a vote. There’s a chance the agency could bring it up for a vote at the October 27 meeting, though there’s no decision on that yet.
BDS concerns a special access market for dedicated, high-capacity broadband connections; they’re typically used to bring broadband to a cell tower or link an ATM to a bank, for example.Under the proposal, the Commission would regulate prices for special access connections that use legacy technology, reports The Hill. An FCC official indicated these legacy technologies are slower than modern Ethernet systems, but still comprise a large chunk of the revenue generated in the BDS market.
The agency determined there’s enough competition in the market for Ethernet connections, so it won’t implement price regulation over those deals, Inside Towers recently reported. Instead, there will be a complaint process if someone feels there are abuses in the market.
Industry groups are not happy about the bifurcated treatment. USTelecom President Walter McCormick stated that while the chairman’s draft “appropriately recognizes that companies are investing and competing in BDS, and that price regulation of packet-based IP technologies is both unwarranted and unwise. We are concerned, however, that the order appears to apply indiscriminate price regulation to legacy TDM services without regard to the state of competition in the local market, or economic factors such as company size, demographics and geography of the service area.”
Non-industry groups believe the update does not go far enough, according to The Hill. Some public interest groups told Wheeler and his colleagues in a letter they should impose rate regulation on Ethernet service too.
October 12, 2016
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