FCC Won’t Complete Triennial Review This Month

The Federal Communications Commission will not complete its Triennial Review of the unbundled network element – platform this year.

“We are not expecting the Triennial to be completed by this month, December. We are looking toward the early part of next year, January, February time-frame,” an FCC spokesman said Monday.

The FCC is scheduled to issue new rules on the UNE-P, a controversial resale method that telephone companies increasingly have used to provide small business and residential customers local phone service. Some regulatory sources said they would not expect the FCC to complete the review until February at the very earliest, particularly since competitors are submitting a heavy load of proposals to the federal government and new FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein also must weigh in on the debate.

On Monday the FCC released new data that shows CLECs continue to migrate away from straight resale of the Bell operating companies’ local loops to the UNE resale model.

Through the first six months of the year CLECs reported providing about 21 percent of their switched access lines through resale, representing a 43 percent decline from December 1999. CLECs provided about half of the switched access lines by leasing local loops through UNEs, according to the data released. The remainder of lines was provided over local loops owned by CLECs.

"The FCC’s most recent data on local phone competition confirms what we have suspected — the UNE-platform, virtually by itself, is responsible for continued growth in CLEC market share,” said Walter G. Blackwell, president of the Association for Communications Enterprises, in a statement Monday. “It also confirms what ASCENT has been telling lawmakers that restricting access to the platform is not just a wrong turn, it’s a U-Turn in terms of bringing more competition and consumer choice to local phone service."

Led by the No. 2 local phone company, SBC Communications Inc., the Bells argue that the UNE-P pricing model is flawed, so much so that it requires them to lease portions of their network below cost. The Bells also insist that CLECs have plenty of access to certain network elements, such as switches, and consequently competitors should be prohibited from leasing that equipment from the incumbent based on UNE-P prices.

The incumbents reported providing about 29 percent more UNE loops with switching and about 10 percent more loops without switching through the first six months of the year, according to the FCC data released Monday. UNE loops with switching totaled 7.5 million, compared to 5.8 million the prior six months, and UNE loops without switching totaled 4.1 million, compared to 3.7 million the prior six months.

Regulatory pundits expect the FCC to gradually phase out the resale method in areas where competitors have gained mass-market share. But CLECs say the Bells still must have systems capable of providing a seamless transition from the platform to a competitor’s own facilities without an interruption in telephone service and at a reasonable cost to the CLEC.