DSL Prime: Truth in Regulation

There's a limit to how many lies any lobbyist can tell the regulators.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [November 17, 2004]

Will Powell support VoIP over DSL?
Unbundling crucial
On Wall Street after the FCC VoIP ruling, the consensus is "ho-hum," because the telcos and probably the cablecos are expected to maintain independent VoIP in a small niche by effectively bundling. If I can't get DSL without paying Verizon $26/month for a basic phone line, it rarely makes economic sense to sign up for Vonage, AT&T, or any of the other services. The folks in D.C. should stop patting themselves on the back for a minor ruling, that the feds instead of the states should make the VoIP rules. If VoIP is the goal, the FCC now has to federalize the unbundling requirement.

Powell knows the issue, telling the VON audience "There are positive developments in this space. Providers are beginning to offer naked DSL access to their broadband pipe without the requirement that customers also subscribe to their voice offering."

But Ted Hearn at Multichannel reports a Legg Mason opinion that Powell will not support the petition to allow number portability without turning off your DSL line. Easy to get the WSJ to agree on fewer regs and cutting taxes, harder to put in place the actual rules needed for competition.

Alabama spam filters won't accept the common name for unbundled DSL, but you know the phrase that should have been in this headline.

Bob Rowe's DSLAM story
Montana losing a good commissioner to term limits
Bob Rowe of Montana speaks eloquently at both the federal and state level of the importance of delivering DSL to everyone. He inspired me to do the research that became this story, providing the date that near-universal service is affordable. Senior telco officials were telling several states DSL was too expensive, claiming it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per CO. I knew they were lying, so found an unimpeachable source for the facts, resulting in this item:

Qwest: DSL from $15,000 per exchange
Carol Miller, Qwest's VP of Network Operations and Engineering, tells me "Qwest is able to install DSL in some COs for about $15,000, if the COs have space, power, fiber and ATM connectivity. ... Vendors are currently promising new equipment that is designed to reduce these costs further, which Qwest will evaluate carefully."

Editorial: Half Qwest's refund should wire Idaho
Qwest has just won in court a $4.6 million windfall in reduced property taxes in Idaho. DSL Prime urges they re-invest half that sum in providing more broadband in the state. 35 of Qwest's 74 wire centers in Idaho currently have DSL, Silvia McLachlan of Qwest informs me. Virtually all the remainder have enough space and power for the single rack a DSLAM requires. Qwest won't disclose to me if any lack fiber connections, but assuming Qwest Idaho is typical of rural telcos, most will have fiber capacity in place. Putting a $15,000 DSLAM in 30 of those will cost less than half a million. The remaining $1.8 million would cover 200+ remotes, adding to the 304 remote DSLAMs Qwest has in place.

Result: Idaho, at least Qwest territory, would be one of the more wired rural states in the nation. BellSouth wired every CO in North Carolina in 2001, and done the same in Kentucky, but many are far behind. This is a great opportunity for Qwest to advance a state's economy.

Bad liars cost big bucks
800 percent exaggeration kills trust
At NARUC's broadband conference, I learned from a state regulator that a bell asked for a rate increase in order to cover the cost of DSL enabling more exchanges, claiming it would costs "hundreds of thousands" per exchange. "We asked them why they claimed costs so much higher than the $15,000 in the DSL Prime story, and they never gave us a good explanation. Ultimately, we decided the proposal didn't serve the people of our state."

Copyright 2004 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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