Posted by: Bob Quinn on May 18, 2011 at 12:34 pm
My colleague, Joan Marsh, has done a concise job of addressing the question of whether it is really a good idea to require tens of millions of consumers to have to go out and buy new cell phones. Now, I’d like to address, less concisely, but just as importantly, some of the statements made during last week’s hearing on our merger with T-mobile by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse (no relation to Renata Hesse, new most important person in my life) on backhaul.
But first, I need to point out that T-Mobile doesn’t provide special access, and indeed has made significant strides to move away from local landline carrier special access. In fact, last year, T-Mobile projected that by 2Q11, 75% of its cell sites would be served by alternate providers.
What this means is that this merger has absolutely no impact on the issue of special access/wireless backhaul. But despite that, Mr. Hesse brought it up anyway as an issue in this merger.
Specifically, Mr. Hesse asserted that, “Two companies would control most of our nation’s wire line infrastructure and the critical last mile that Sprint and the rest of the industry need [my emphasis] to provide affordable rates and quality service.” And that special access “is a huge piece of our cost structure and the cost structure of all wireless carriers.” He further went on to say that, “What we pay roughly – if you will, 30 percent of the cost of putting in a new cell site goes back to a local landline carrier in the form of payments for special access and those payments are very, very high.”
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Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on May 12, 2011 at 4:52 pm
By Eric Loeb, AT&T Vice President of International, External and Regulatory Affairs
In January, President Obama instructed each agency to improve regulation within their responsibility, by ensuring alignment between current regulation and policies that will both protect public welfare and promote economic growth, innovation and competitiveness. With focused effort within five months, today the FCC shows that it can be a leading agency to fulfill the Administration’s pledge.
Today’s order to streamline and modernize international data reporting requirements is a welcome measure that will eliminate unnecessary burdens on industry and the FCC. Indeed, the reporting requirements removed today had ceased to have any relevance to the Commission’s duties because of increased competition in the markets and associated changes in Commission policies. This streamlining will help industry and the Commission to focus on advancing the customer issues of the future, issues that will require the Commission to rethink not only the data it collects but how it uses that data to assess the need for regulation in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
The Commission also seeks to modernize the reporting requirements by proposing some changes in a further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM), and we will participate actively in that review to help ensure that any new requirements are essential and not excessively burdensome.
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Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on May 4, 2011 at 4:04 pm
The following statement may be attributed to Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs.
“We are grateful to Rep. Eshoo for introducing legislation that will facilitate broadband deployment in areas where highways are being built with federal funding. This terrific bill provides an imaginative way to lower deployment costs while easing some of the inconveniences citizens encounter during the installation of fiber-optic communications cable. We look forward to continuing to work with the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Eshoo and Rep. Waxman, an original cosponsor. We appreciate their leadership in helping to get our nation to 100 percent broadband availability.”
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