Rollup: Small City Municipal Broadband

Mon Feb 4 21:36:07 UTC 2013

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Fletcher Kittredge <fkittred at gwi.net> wrote:

>
> Scott;
>
> I apologize.   You could very well sincerely not realize you are wrong.
> Obviously, erroneous thinking is not the same as making things up.
>

Thanks, I think ;)

I looked back and what I had written and I will say that I could have been
expressed it along these lines; "It would be difficult in most RBOC
territories today today offer residential scale broadband access because of
the lack of good UNE loops.  This is further complicated by the fact that
in many territories local number are too expensive for the relatively low
density of a given area and that retards the uptake of residential CLEC
voice services."

>
> However, it is not good that bad information is out there and it should be
> corrected.    First you refer to them as "dry copper" or "dry pair" which
> has no regulatory meaning.   I don't know if using the wrong term is part
> of the reason you have had difficulty ordering them.   The proper term is
> Unbundled Network Elements(UNE) copper loops.  UNEs are the elements the
> ILECs are required to sell to CLECs.  There are a variety of different
> types of UNE loops.   The most accurate way to identify them is probably
> referring to an ILEC wholesale tariff filed on a state-by-state basis.
> The FCC defines Section 251 requirements, but individual state PUCs
> administer the tariffs for their locations.
>

Agreed, dry pair is trade speak and not sufficiently accurate for a
discussion on  telco regulations.  UNE is the correct term and we are both
talking about the same item.

> Second, going to any document by the NTCA, an advocacy organization, for
> information on this topic is a mistake for obvious bias reasons.

True, the NTCA is an advocacy group but they're also a communication group
that tracks regulatory changes for the industry.  I'll try and pull up the
relevant documentation.

>    The controlling documents are the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Telco
> Act),  the FCC's Triennial Review Order[s](TRO), various ILEC tariffs and
> the individual InterConnection Agreements(ICA) between ILECs and CLECs.
> Under the Telco Act, UNE loops are a Section 251 requirement.    The FCC
> has primary responsibility for administering Section 251 requirements and
> the FCC's rules for doing so are put forth in the TROs.   The last TROs
> were released in 2004, so that would be the last time "the rules changed"
> as you put it.   So there has not been a recent change in the rules
> resulting in residential CLEC demise.
>

I don't know why I gave you any reason to think I was referring to anything
but the Supreme Court refusing to even hear the 2004 case as the primary
regulatory shift for CLECs.  That was the last year we had a formal change
in Federal regulation, though its certainly not the end of cases and the
FCC has a docket of CLEC/ILEC cases pretty much every week and those have
been consistently in favor of the ILEC side of things.   There are also
state level actions and inactions that have made the climate harsher for
CLECs.

>
> Third, it is true that an ILEC is not required to add capacity.   However,
> it is hard for me to believe anyone would say with a straight face that any
> residential CLECs went out of business primarily because ILECs are not
> required to add copper.   In a period where there is steady erosion of
> landlines resulting in a lot of unused copper loops, lack of copper loops
> is a small issue.   Some residential CLECs went out of business because
> they had broken business models.   Some residential CLECs became successful
> business CLECs as well, check out Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK).   The
> controlling issues are more financial than regulatory.   We have had the
> same regulatory regime for almost a decade.
>

Earthlink is in the residential business because that's where they came
from.  They've been busy buying and building commercial services ever since
the Mindspring merger.  If it weren't for the fact that ITC-Deltacom ended
up with a poor reputation that's what their name would likely be today.

>
> Any prudent DSL provider, ILEC or CLEC, should have plans for a transition
> to copper, but the copper network still has useful life in it for
> residential CLECs as well as other markets.
>

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.  Should this have been "a
transition from copper"?

>
> Fletcher
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 9:53 PM, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
>
>> Fletcher,
>>
>> Your specific case may vary, but I am most certainly _not_ "making stuff
>> up".  In many territories, especially outside of major metro areas, you
>> cannot order dry pairs.  This has been because of a combination of relaxed
>> rules (if you really want I can dig up the NTCA reports on this) and
>> because the rules never required the ILEC to add capacity once they were
>> used up.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Fletcher Kittredge <fkittred at gwi.net>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> In this particular post, your making stuff up.   There are still
>>> "residential focused" CLECs and ordering Unbundled Network Elements(UNEs)
>>> is not more difficult than in the past.   The rules haven't changed.
>>>
>>> What is certainly true is that many CLECs have found that it is more
>>> lucrative to sell to businesses, but I don't think there is a correlation
>>> with residential getting more difficult.   We used to be 75%/25%
>>> residential/business and are now 45%/55% business, but that reflects the
>>> *rapid* growth of the business market.
>>>
>>> regards,
>>> Fletcher
>>>
>>> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Joe,
>>>>
>>>> I'm assuming from your domain that you're in Canada where yes dry pairs
>>>> are
>>>> still generally available.  I apologize for not making it clear that my
>>>> comment was specifically about the US where dry pairs are nearly
>>>> impossible
>>>> to order today and the CLEC market has almost entirely abandoned the
>>>> residential space. In fact, the only state in the US that I still see
>>>> any
>>>> residentially focused CLECs is Texas which tells me there is something
>>>> about the regulations in that state that makes it more feasible.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Joe Abley <jabley at hopcount.ca> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > On 2013-02-03, at 14:39, Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > > Dry pairs are impossible to order these days for a reason.
>>>> >
>>>> > Dry pairs are trivial to order round these parts. Generalisations are
>>>> > always wrong, no doubt including this one.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Joe (putting the N back in NANOG)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Scott Helms
>>>> Vice President of Technology
>>>> ZCorum
>>>> (678) 507-5000
>>>> --------------------------------
>>>> http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
>>>> --------------------------------
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Fletcher Kittredge
>>> GWI
>>> 8 Pomerleau Street
>>> Biddeford, ME 04005-9457
>>> 207-602-1134
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Scott Helms
>> Vice President of Technology
>> ZCorum
>> (678) 507-5000
>> --------------------------------
>> http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
>> --------------------------------
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Fletcher Kittredge
> GWI
> 8 Pomerleau Street
> Biddeford, ME 04005-9457
> 207-602-1134

-- 
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
--------------------------------