ISPs at odds with PC vendors on dereg proposal

FCC to vote on loosening RBOC rules to spur DSL rollouts.

By David Rohde
Network World Fusion, 01/22/99

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A fissure has developed this week between computer manufacturers and ISPs on the eve of a government ruling that regional Bell operating companies say could affect the speed of their DSL rollouts to customers.

A broad coalition of ISPs led by the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) urged the Federal Communications Commission not to deregulate RBOC data services in exchange for promises of broader digital subscriber line (DSL) offerings. CIX president Barbara Dooley asked the FCC to put off an expected ruling next Thursday that would allow RBOCs to establish separate data-services subsidiaries.

Those subsidiaries would enjoy looser requirements to interconnect with ISPs and competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) than the RBOC parent companies. Several RBOCs claim they need this provision because they can't invest as heavily as they would like in DSL lines if they're forced to resell them to competitors.

But Dooley said ISPs may lose the business of users who are demanding more robust Internet access if they can't get access to RBOC DSL facilities. She called on the FCC to force RBOCs to provide space for ISP and CLEC digital-line equipment in their central offices.

"Vigorous enforcement is desperately needed, not the establishment of a new, tilted playing field," Dooley said. She was joined by several state ISP association officials. Many of them emphasized the danger to small ISPs if the FCC cuts off their access to RBOC interconnection.

The ISPs' position is at odds with a recent proposal by Compaq, Intel, Gateway, Microsoft and other vendors who say they can sell more and better PC gear if DSL deployment speeds up. That group urged the FCC to go ahead and loosen restrictions on RBOCs and GTE on the basis that deregulation should spur.

Dooley acknowledged that the two groups are taking directly opposite sides - a rarity in the world of telecom regulation, where traditional local and long-distance carriers often fight each other but data-oriented vendors usually lie low. "Perhaps it's not as important to the computer companies which carrier is providing the pipe," she said.

Regardless of what the FCC decides, there is no guarantee that RBOCs will change their broadband deployment schedules. The FCC last August proposed a data-subsidiary plan, but loaded it with conditions that several RBOCs deemed unacceptable. The computer manufacturers' proposal went further than the FCC's by allowing RBOC broadband data subsidiaries to carry traffic beyond local calling areas, even if the FCC has not granted their parent companies general long-distance authority.

Most of the FCC commissioners are unlikely to go as far as the computer manufacturers, since the FCC has said that the procedure outlined for RBOC long-distance entry in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 - a 14-point checklist of local competition - is sacrosanct.