Verizon/Incompas BDS Plan Wins Support from State, Local CLEC Groups

Telecommunications Alliance and the Northwest Telecommunications Association. They supported parts of the Verizon/Incompas plan including (1) a competitive market test using three bandwidth tiers, (2) ensuring that price adjustments adopted by the FCC should result in “significant actual price reductions from current levels” for TDM and IP-based services, (3) reductions in price cap levels for TDM of at least 15 percent, and (4) adoption of an X-Factor reducing rates annually by 4.4 percent minus inflation. The groups backed adoption of an enforceable framework of ex ante price regulation for Ethernet services, which “should result in price reductions for Ethernet services that are at least as large as those proposed for TDM services on a one-time and on-going basis.” The CLEC associations supported a proposal of the Wholesale Voice Line Coalition to extend the FCC requirement that ILECs provide a reasonably comparable replacement product for its wholesale voice services when they transition to IP-based networks. Incompas General Counsel Angie Kronenberg said in a statement she welcomed the support from associations “on the front lines of state and local broadband challenges.” In a separate letter in docket 16-143, Verizon proposed an effective date of July 1 for implementing the order if it’s adopted later this year. The date is “aggressive, but Verizon suggests the Commission should align the deadline for implementing the major reforms with next year’s annual filing,” it said.