Telecom firms battle over data lines - San Francisco Business Times:

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On the table is a proposed review of federa l rules on how much largee phone companies have to open up their phoned networks tosmaller competitors. Regional Bell operating companiesw – such as Communications Inc. of San which owns and operates the Pacifid Bell phone network in the BayArea – argue that they should have to open their networks only to competitors that sell voicde telecommunications services, not data services such as Interner access. Smaller competitors argue that the Bell companies are splittinh hairs and trying to reclaim a monopoly position in telecommunications that federal law was designed tobreak up.
The is expectedf to draft a proposed rule by late January orearlt February, a commission spokesman The dispute centers on interpreting the federak Telecommunications Act of 1996. That act requires Bell companies to open theirr phone networks to competitors in exchange for beingh allowed tosell long-distance phone service. SBC and other Bell companies (Verizon, Qwesrt and BellSouth) argue that the 1996 act appliexs only to competitors who sellvoicwe services, not data. "They were givenm access to the legacy voice network so they could saidJohn Britton, an SBC spokesman in San Francisco. "Nowa they want access to all of the Bell investmentsgoing forward.
They want us to invest billions and billionz of dollars to build out a data networjk and they want access to it at subsidized Therivals – knowb in telecom vernacular as competitivre local exchange carriers, or CLECs – see it another way. of Santaa Clara argues there is no distinction between voiced and data services underthe law. Covad uses Bell phonew lines toprovide digital-subscriber line Internett access to customers. "Thre 1996 act does not base unbundling of the Bell companyt network on the services that are saidJason Oxman, assistant general counsel for Covad, from his office in Washington, D.C.
"(The Bell companies) make the claij that the '96 act was only about voice, even though the word does not appear inthe measure. It's aboutg telecommunications services." Bell companiesx have been opening up their locapnetworks – particularly the lines from a Bell company'z central office to individual homes and offices selling access at a wholesale rate to competitorsa that resell the service.
In they have been winning approval to enter the marketyfor long-distance service, which they have been prevente by law from Last month, SBC won a six-year battl e to sell long-distance services in California after winninv the approval of the FCC and the Californiz Public Utilities Commission. The company formally launched its long-distancs services in Californiaon Jan. 1. SBC arguese that while it has to open its phonse network to competing localphone companies, it should not have to open its networkk to data service providers such as Covad.
Britton argues that the Telecommunicationws Act addressedthe Bells' past monopoly in local phonw service but that its rivals are trying to apply it to futurd telecom services. But at a Dec. 17 news conferencse in Washington, an organization representing high-speed Internet service providers arguec the Bell companies already hold a monopolt in thedata market, too. Mauras Colleton, executive director of the lobbygroup BroadNet, pointes to the Dec. 13 decisiojn of satellite TV provider DirecTV to scuttle its DSLInterner service, which will result in the firingt of 400 DirecTV employeesz in Cupertino.
Colleton noted publidc comments from DirecTV officials that the cost of accessing the locaol phone network made it impossible for DirecTV DSL to makea "The ISPs get flak for saying: 'The sky is falling, the sky is You're going to put us out of Colleton said. "This is the ghost of Christmadto come. When we say that the providerws are going to go under ifthey can't accese the (local phone network), we mean