Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on June 4, 2013 at 1:03 pm
The following are prepared remarks delivered earlier today by Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s Senior Executive Vice President of External and Legislative Affairs, at the Brussels Internet & Telecom Seminar:
Thank you for having me here today. I am pleased to be in Brussels, and a part of this discussion about Regulatory Modernization.
This is an important topic for all of us, both in Europe and the US.
I’ll be the first person to recognize that the different facts in each country can require different policy tools, even when there are common goals. With that in mind, though, I hope it will be helpful to this panel discussion if I share my thoughts, based largely on US experience, on the topic of what needs to happen with regulation to inspire investment in the networks of the future.
Full disclosure: I’m a policy guy, and I’m not ashamed of it. I think it’s important to talk about the relationship between technology and regulation. Why? Because in this conversation among all of us in the private sector and government, we need to find a good balance, with the right policies to guide market forces. If we don’t get the regulatory framework right, we won’t tap the full potential of what new technology can do for our economy and society.
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Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on May 24, 2013 at 11:46 am
Please attribute the following to Len Cali, AT&T Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy:
“On behalf of AT&T I want to congratulate Danny Sepulveda for his nomination to become Ambassador for International Communications and Information Policy. We have had the pleasure of working with Danny on many important issues, and he possesses the experience, expertise and commitment to expanding communications services that will serve him well in this important position. We look forward to working together.”
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Posted by: Hank Hultquist on June 19, 2012 at 3:00 pm
A document recently made public, provides insight into a bugaboo of telecom regulatory policy – the so-called terminating access monopoly. The theory of the terminating access monopoly is that for all traffic which must terminate to a specific end user device who is served by a single provider, that provider has a monopoly and can insist upon unreasonable termination charges. The theory rose to prominence during the 1990s era debate over CLEC access charges, and has been used to justify net neutrality regulation and, most recently, regulation of IP-IP interconnection.
The most obvious problem with this theory is that one could as plausibly argue that the originating provider has a similar monopoly. What I mean is, for example, that for me to receive a call which I am expecting from my boss, his carrier is the monopoly provider of origination. In effect, the two providers are locked in a bilateral monopoly – one originating, the other terminating. If both providers have a monopoly over their role in the exchange of traffic, why do we have a terminating monopoly theory and not an originating monopoly theory?
In fact, like so many monopolies, the terminating monopoly is not some naturally occurring phenomenon, but rather is a consequence of regulation. On the public switched telephone network (PSTN), regulators created a system known as “calling party network pays,” under which “originating” carriers were required to compensate “terminating” carriers for calls. This requirement was effectuated primarily through the filing of tariffs by the terminating carriers. Originating carriers were required to complete calls (even calls associated with scams like traffic pumping) pursuant to terms lawfully set out in these tariffs.
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