WASHINGTON-The telecom industry gathered last week in Las Vegas for a convention sponsored by the United States Telecommunications Association. Next week, many of the same people will visit Sin City again to attend CTIA’s annual gathering.
Against the backdrop of major telecom carriers consolidating and telecom vendors like Alcatel Alsthom and Lucent Technologies Inc. trying to combine into one company, questions arise about how many associations the telecom industry will choose to support going forward.
“There has been a lot of talk during this trip that there are too many people going after the same group of resources. There is going to have to be some give,” said one industry executive speaking from the United States Telecom Association’s TelecomNext event in Las Vegas.
It seems that while every industry has at least one association, the telecommunications industry has several. Today, major carriers either belong to USTA, which has branded itself as USTelecom, or CTIA, which refers to itself as The Wireless Association. For example, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. is a member of CTIA, but not a member of USTA, though Cingular’s President and Chief Executive Officer Stan Sigman was a keynote speaker at TelecomNext. But as a joint venture between the merging AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp., Cingular can benefit from USTA lobbying too because its parents both are members of USTA.
Verizon Wireless, too, only belongs to CTIA, but its parent, Verizon Communications Inc., belongs to USTA. Alltel Corp. belongs to both associations, but won’t need USTA since is it spinning out its wireline business.
Other associations looking for mobile-phone carrier members include the Rural Cellular Association and the Rural Telecommunications Group. Both represent the rural wireless voice, but members of these organizations are typically also members of CTIA. The rural lobbying groups try to differentiate themselves by focusing on issues of lesser importance to nationwide carriers.
On the wireline side, there are also two rural associations: the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. Members of these organizations also belong to USTA, but are sometimes swept up in arguments-like lack of broadband deployment in rural areas-that are not relevant since rural wireline carriers have been leaders in broadband deployment.
On the policy side, there is little overlap between USTA and CTIA-and often confrontation, especially on issues such as universal service and intercarrier compensation. Lately one of the big policy fights has been between USTA and NCTA as USTA fights for national video franchising and NCTA resists this idea.
The timing of USTA’s show was precipitated by a split with the Telecommunications Industry Association. The two groups used to produce SuperComm. Since the split, USTA started TelecomNext, while TIA is going forward with Globalcomm in June in Chicago.
Trade shows are moneymakers for many Washington, D.C.-based trade associations, which market themselves as the voice of an industry and are seen as the lobbying force for their chosen industry. Without a successful trade show, there are fewer resources to wage successful lobbying campaigns on policy issues of importance to an association’s members.
CTIA President Steve Largent said he believes at some point the different telecom associations could consolidate, but since politics is such a hotbed, he thinks associations would be the last to converge. And he may be right: the plethora of telecom associations enable lawmakers often to find at least one group satisfied with their decisions.
Meanwhile, as the telecom companies start offering TV services, they may be tempted to join associations like the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and National Broadcasters Association conventions-which, of course, are putting on shows in Las Vegas within weeks of each other. RCR
