Three members of Congress asked the FCC to “suspend...
Three members of Congress asked the FCC to “suspend and investigate” AT&T’s recent special access filing. “We are concerned about AT&T’s recent notice of its intention to eliminate service plans for terms longer than three years and the effect this…
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action, if approved, would have on prices and competition in the marketplace,” said Friday’s letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa. “By eliminating these plans, AT&T is effectively increasing rates in some regions by as much as 24 percent -- which would result in increased costs to users by hundreds of millions of dollars.” Several CLECs also criticized the AT&T filing (CD Dec 4 p3). AT&T framed the move in a November blog post as part of the IP transition. “The tariff changes filed today will grandfather DS1 and DS3 term plans greater than 36 months, including ones that have term periods as long as seven years,” Senior Vice President Bob Quinn wrote of changes that could become effective Tuesday. “The first step of that plan is to align the commitments we make to our customers with the goal of transitioning to an all-IP network. That is why today we have taken a step to make sure that multi-year commitments we enter into today for aging TDM-based services reflect the on-going transition to IP and do not extend beyond the expected completion of our transition in 2020.” The members of Congress lamented the “broken special access market” and said they're “pleased” the FCC is collecting data on it. They wanted AT&T’s filing suspended to allow more data collection and not “short circuit” that process.