Brian Solomon, TMCnet Web Editor
The Federal Communications Commission came under attack from three CLEC CEOs during a panel session at the Comptel convention this week in Dallas. McLeodUSA president and CEO Royce Holland, XO Chairman and CEO Carl Grivner, and Hypercube president and CEO Ron Beaumont criticized the commission for its ineffectiveness, its lack of an efficient process for resolving disputes, and for allowing politics and partisanship to get in the way of enforcing the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
The vocal calls for a non-partisan FCC (News - Alert) coincide with the FCC’s consideration of ILECs’ requests for access charge forbearance. Granting this and other forbearance petitions would allow incumbents AT&T,Verizon ( News - Alert) and Qwest to stop selling some parts of their networks to competitors on the grounds that there is enough competition for consumers to be sufficiently protected from price increases.
“To say I am thoroughly disgusted is as nice as I can be,” Beaumont said. “I think the whole system is broken.”
In its battle against the FCC, the CLEC industry has garnered support from both sides of Congress, but the three execs remain skeptical of the regulatory process as a whole.
“What’s always lacking at the FCC is a dispute resolution process,” Holland said. “It’s a paper tiger. Carriers won’t pay their bills for interconnection, they won’t follow the rules. What is badly needed is a dispute resolution process that is based on arbitration, by industry experts, and not by the courts, where the judges who aren’t industry experts can be overwhelmed by lawyers. And then there needs to be strict enforcement, with fines and forfeiture.”
“It’s very behind-the-scenes until the very last minute,” added Grivner.
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