WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau has announced plans to release data on the Special Access Market for the first time ever. The bureau said in a statement it, “will start to make industry data gathered earlier this year available for public review, pursuant to the terms of a protective order safeguarding competitively sensitive information.”
The Special Access Market is described by the bureau as “a wholesale data service widely purchased by businesses and institutions that provides dedicated, guaranteed transmission of high volumes of critical data.” The market drives about $40 billion in revenue annually.
The FCC has taken the steps in an effort to make the broadband market more competitive. Jeff Sharpe, a spokesman for the Broadband Coalition, noted, “Special access data is competition data. [FCC] Chairman Tom Wheeler and this FCC have shown their willingness to break down every barrier to competition, and the special access data will be an important arrow in their quiver.”
U.S. Telecom, the trade association that represents the majority of those companies with a stake in the Special Access Market, took the position that the report was unnecessary.
From a statement from the group: “The FCC has been encouraging competition for business customers since the mid-1980s. Thirty years later, we are confident that the data the FCC has collected will show that its policies have been successful and that there is broad competition for these customers. Comcast’s announcement this week that it has struck privately negotiated wholesale arrangements with other cable companies across the country to help it provide business enterprise services is just the latest evidence of competition in this sector, occurring without the need for government to step in.”
Mike Mooney, L3 SVP and general counsel for regulatory policy, has a different perspective, telling reporters, “What the FCC ultimately needs to do is reevaluate the Special Access Market because it’s broken. The incumbents are still dominant and still overcharging the industry for … these critical connections that enable communications networks to work that only they can provide.”
U.S. Telecom, for its part, has said, “Business customers need modern, robust communications infrastructure now and in the future to compete in global markets. The key issue for the FCC and the country is modernizing policy to get robust investment in new fiber optics and Internet services to replace aging low-capacity special access services. We look forward to working through the facts and analysis with the commission.”
