Competitive service providers launch Broadband Coalition advocacy group

Competitive service providers that serve the business community believe that the FCC needs to do more to drive competition and innovation in the telecom industry, so they have banded together to form The Broadband Coalition.

Featuring the likes of business-centric CLECs such as CBeyond (Nasdaq: CBEY) and EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK) and competitive industry group COMPTEL, the Broadband Coalition is focused on helping the FCC drive more competition in the business broadband parts of the National Broadband Plan.

In addition, the group wants the FCC to make an effort to "renew and strengthen the competitive framework established by the Telecom Act of 1996."

One particular issue of concern for the CLEC community, many of which still use the ILEC copper infrastructure to deliver services, is that many of the incumbents that are in the process of transitioning from the PSTN to IP believe that they won't need to provide access to competitive providers, a perception that is in contrast to the goals of the 1996 Act.

At the same competitive providers that use the traditional copper network to deliver voice and Ethernet fear that their service delivery platform could be compromised as telcos replace copper with fiber in their last mile networks.

To battle these issues, the Coalition said it will ask the FCC to clarify the obligations ILEC have to adhere to as the telecom industry makes its transition to an all IP technology.

For more:
- see the release

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