Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
August 30, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. E03
LENGTH: 797 words
HEADLINE:
Landlords Gain Ground in Telecom Access Fight
BYLINE:
Peter S. Goodman , Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
As the Federal Communications Commission moves toward a vote on
rules aimed at ensuring access to offices and apartment buildings for upstart
telecommunications carriers, property owners mounting a fierce lobbying campaign
against such mandates appear to be gaining momentum.
Last week, the
FCC's staff delivered a draft of the rules to commissioners ahead of an
anticipated Sept. 14 vote, according to sources close to the deliberations. The
draft does not include a call to assert authority over landlords, the sources
said.
Faced with warnings from Capitol Hill that its powers do not
extend that far, FCC officials have grown reluctant to press the issue, the
sources said, and are now encouraging a negotiated resolution between the
telecommunications companies and the landlords. Officials at the FCC have come
to see property owners as a key bottleneck in the emergence of
telecommunications competition. For more than a year, the commission's staff has
been considering rules that would force property owners to allow new entrants
into buildings to wire customers. But real estate interests have argued that the
FCC lacks jurisdiction, while arguing that the market can be relied upon to
deliver competition.
The Real Access Alliance, an umbrella group of
major real estate owners, sought to preempt the rules this month with voluntary
pledges of guaranteed building access for some new competitors where tenants
request service. Though the upstart companies have dismissed the commitments as
inadequate and unenforceable, FCC officials hope a continuing dialogue will
produce agreement.
That approach would clearly relieve pressure in
Congress.
"The commission lacks any express statutory authority to take
up this matter itself," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), ranking minority member
on the House Commerce Committee's telecommunications subcommittee, said in a
letter sent last week to FCC Chairman William E. Kennard. "I hope you will give
the private effort ample time to bear fruit."
As senior FCC officials
see it, unless landlords open their doors to new telephone entrants, the market
will remain dominated by the entrenched Bell companies, which still control the
vast majority of wires reaching homes and businesses.
In a bid to bypass
the Bells, new ventures such as Vienna-based Teligent have used the airwaves to
transmit telephone service and high-speed Internet connections into buildings.
But the upstarts need to place an antenna on the rooftop and tap into the
internal wiring to deliver a dial tone.
In filings to the FCC, the rival
companies have argued that many landlords effectively delay or impede service
with demands for expensive fees and engineering studies before they can gain
access to buildings. Sometimes the landlords deny access altogether.
Property owners counter that they are simply seeking to safeguard their
buildings and services for their tenants by ensuring there is no damage from
installing antennas on rooftops or new wiring. The upstarts frequently boast to
Wall Street of their success in negotiating their way into office buildings in
major cities. The landlords say the companies are simply crying foul in the
hopes of using the regulators to pry their way into more buildings at lower
costs.
Ever since Congress adopted the landmark
Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was aimed at deregulating
the industry, such battles have raged, with the FCC playing referee. The FCC has
mostly sided with the upstarts, forcing the Bell companies to lease key
components of their networks to their rivals.
FCC officials see the
battle over building access in the same context. When commission staff took up
the issue last year, it considered imposing rules that would force landlords to
provide access to the rival companies in exchange for fair compensation. But
some commissioners voiced worries that the FCC would be on shaky legal ground if
it sought to regulate landlords. Several members of Congress have since added
their voices to that chorus.
Though sources said the FCC staff remains
convinced that they have the authority to regulate landlords as part of their
broad mandate to foster telecommunications competition, a negotiated resolution
has become the more palatable approach.
Representatives for the
competitive telephone companies said they remained confident the FCC would find
a way to ease their path.
"Anything from the FCC is better than
nothing," said Jonathan Askin, general counsel for the Association of Local
Telecommunications Services, which represents the upstart companies. "It's going
to advance the ball. We're convinced of that. It's going to send a message that,
as a policy matter, the FCC believes that all carriers deserve nondiscriminatory
access."
LOAD-DATE: August 30, 2000
