Nationwide policy debates between upstart telecommunications providers and the entrenched regional phone monopolies they hope to overthrow could converge in Orange County, thanks to an increasingly vocal advocacy group based here.
The Irvine-based Association for Local Telecommunications Services, or ALTS, a lobbying group that represents phone companies not affiliated with remnants of the Ma Bell telephone system once represented by AT & T; Corp., has become a vocal presence in the ongoing battle over access to the telephone infrastructure.
“The incumbent telephone companies are like bureaucrats; they protect their fiefdoms and do only what they’re told,” said group president John Windhausen, echoing a common criticism of the nation’s regional bell providers, which include SBC Communications, Bell Atlantic and others.
The group represents “facilities-based” phone providers,companies that have invested in their own equipment or networks, as opposed to firms that simply buy service wholesale from the incumbent providers and resell it under their own name.
Result of Deregulation
Though the 1996 Telecommunications Act ordered regional providers to open their lines to competitors at cost, all have been embroiled in lawsuits with the upstart telephone providers over pricing and other details.
For their part, officials with most incumbent phone companies say they’re doing everything they can to make decades-old systems, designed for a single national owner, available to the hundreds of new telecommunications providers without losing the billions they’ve invested. Most major cities have one or more alternative phone providers, though business customers have proved a more attractive target than the residential market.
Appealing to Washington
But ALTS’ most recent charges center around some of the newest networks being deployed by the incumbent providers, including those of “Project Pronto,” an effort launched recently by Pacific Bell parent SBC Communications. According to ALTS, the architecture of the new systems deliberately locks out competitors, violating the Telecom Act’s mandate that the systems allow nondiscriminatory access to all competitors.
Though the fights have taken place primarily in local markets,state governments have the most direct control over phone companies,the group is appealing to the Federal Communications Commission to clarify Congress’ intentions. And the outcome could have a national impact because the FCC requires phone companies that want a piece of the long-distance market to open their local lines first.
