Incompas Proposes Wholesale Conditions for FCC Verizon/XO Approval
Incompas said the FCC should impose wholesale conditions on Verizon buying XO to mitigate harms the group alleges would result from the proposed transaction. "The Commission should require that the combined company extend for up to seven years the terms…
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of wholesale contracts pursuant to which XO is a seller and the terms for individual circuits that wholesale customers purchase from XO," said an Incompas filing posted Monday in docket 16-70. "The Commission should also prohibit Verizon from increasing for seven years the wholesale rates that XO currently charges customers for services provided pursuant to existing XO contracts or individual circuit arrangements, which generally are substantially lower than the wholesale rates that Verizon charges." The agency should also "prevent Verizon from using its increased market power to stifle competition in the provision of business services at bandwidths below 50 Mbps by imposing penalties on competitors that engage in pro-consumer technology transitions," Incompas said. "Verizon continues to assess shortfall liability for TDM services, even when a wholesale customer is replacing those services with purchases of Ethernet services that more than cover the shortfall, and even when the TDM tariff option includes circuit portability such that the wholesale purchaser’s spend is not tied to a specific end-user location." The group proposed Verizon/XO conditions to guarantee wholesale access to "unbundled DS1 and DS3 capacity loops" at discounted rates regardless of IP transition plans, ensure "special construction" charges are subject to the proposed conditions, and prohibit the combined company from changing "Ethernet over Copper" service terms and conditions and altering their geographic coverage for seven years, except in some specified cases. Verizon emailed in response: “The record contains a great deal of uncontested information documenting the benefits of this transaction -- including to our deployment of 5G. We don’t believe the requested conditions are warranted and we look forward to continuing to work with staff to conclude the proceeding.” Monday was Day 168 of the FCC's nonbinding 180-day review clock for the transaction.