Should RBOCs be required to provide unbundled DSL access? Yes

Imagine living in a neighborhood of beautiful homes with mile-long driveways. Then imagine that your community association adopts strict bylaws limiting the use of each driveway to red BMWs only. Other than being forced to walk a mile or to buy a new car, how would you get home if the only vehicle you owned was a blue Ford? That's the dilemma facing competitive telecom service providers. Competitors want to offer everything from basic voice to innovative broadband services to consumers, but are faced with roadblocks that prevent them from traversing the consumers' driveways.

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To reach customers, competitors have three options: resell existing monopoly services; purchase, at fair prices, pieces of the public network from the Bells to combine with their own facilities; or start from scratch and completely overbuild the existing network. Many competitors are choosing the second option - commonly referred to as using unbundled network elements (UNE) - because it lets them enter the market economically, serve customers immediately and build the customer base and revenue stream needed to justify investing in their own facilities.

Even though unbundling rules have made it possible for competitors to purchase UNEs, the regional Bell operating companies continue to block competitors' ability to provide all types of services over the last mile.

The RBOCs claim that DSL facilities equal a "new network" and so should be subject to new rules. But DSL is not a new network; it is a technology that is part of the evolutionary network growth. DSL enables the provision of broadband services over the existing copper loop.

In other words, DSL simply lets customers achieve speedier Internet connections using existing network facilities that were funded over the past century by captive monopoly ratepayers, not the Bells.

This is why the facilities that comprise DSL - the most important of which is the local loop - must be made available on an unbundled basis. If any carrier is permitted to use existing facilities to provide broadband services, competition among carriers will result in lower rates, better service quality and more innovative offerings for consumers. On the other hand, if the RBOCs are exempted from the laws requiring them to open the network to competitors, they will exploit their existing monopoly power over broadband and consumers will not receive these benefits.

The RBOCs say they will not invest in broadband if they have to share the existing network. History shows that this is not the case. The Bells had DSL technology long before Congress mandated unbundling in the Telecom Act. However, absent competition, they did not deploy DSL for fear it would cannibalize their lucrative T-1 business. Only after passage of the act and deployment by alternative broadband providers did the RBOCs finally begin to market broadband services.

Letting competitors have unbundled access to DSL facilities would encourage further broadband deployment. Knowing that unbundled access to DSL would achieve this goal, why then should competitive providers face roadblocks in their attempt to bring consumers the services they want?

Should RBOCs be required to provide unbundled DSL access? Yes.

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