The Texas Public Utilities Commission yesterday issued a monumental decision assessing sanctions of potentially up to $1 million against Southwestern Bell for deliberately attempting to thwart the efforts by two competitors  ACI, now known as Rhythms NetConnections, and Covad  to obtain information critical to their attempt to offer service to local telephone customers in Texas.

What the Texas commission did took a lot of guts. The penalty was the result of SBCs failure to disclose information to local exchange companies who rely on the high-speed digital subscriber lines (DSL) for the local service they provide in competition with Southwestern Bell.

Southwestern Bell is quick to cite the number of interconnection agreements that they have signed with competitors. But this proceeding demonstrates just how difficult it can be to get an agreement with them and how difficult it is for competitors who must rely on the incumbent local telephone company for access to the last mile to the customer.

Sprint has been watching this proceeding with a great deal of interest, since availability of DSL from Southwestern Bell is one of the principal means of bringing the Sprint Integrated On-demand Network (ION) to the mass market. Sprint is pleased that the commission has taken a strong stand against incumbent providers that violate the rules.

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