Today's Top Stories AT&T (NYSE: T) is putting plans on hold to increase charges for special access services after facing an outcry from its wholesale competitive carrier customers. Earlier this month, AT&T announced that it was going to stop offering extended contracts on services such as T1 and DS3 circuits and the discounts that were included in those contracts. A group of competitive service providers, including Sprint (NYSE: S) and tw telecom (Nasdaq: TWTC) wrote a letter to the FCC saying that its action was an abuse of their standing in the special market segment. Competitive providers said that AT&T and fellow RBOC Verizon (NYSE: VZ) control about 80 percent of the special access market. These connections are used by competitive providers to connect their headquarters and remote offices, and by wireless operators for backhaul where IP-based services such as Ethernet are not available today. Wholesale customers received a new letter from AT&T on Friday saying they would hold off on implementing the new charges for a month so they could "address questions and concerns that customers have raised." Under the current rules, AT&T is obligated to tell the FCC of any changes it makes to its special access pricing scheme. However, the changes will go into effect automatically if the regulator does not decide to review them after 15 days. The service provider said it would tell the FCC on Nov. 25 of its plans, adding that the new pricing would take effect on Dec. 10. The telco said that its recent move to eliminate long term contracts is part of its process to migrate its TDM-based network to IP by 2020. "The IP network will be modern--more efficient, more versatile, and more resilient than a traditional TDM network," AT&T wrote in a letter to its customers. "Eliminating long-term commitments to TDM services is a necessary part of that modernization process." Although service providers like Sprint have found utility with IP-based Ethernet services for both its larger business customers, the reality is it is not available everywhere. "As a country, the IP transition is underway and more and more Ethernet will be used and we're thrilled that the ILECS like AT&T are updating the network, but the problem for us and the country is there's always going to be a group of customers who will have no need for big capacity Ethernet," said John Taylor, Sprint's spokesman on federal and state public policy issues, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "They will always just need the same old DS1, DS3, or OC-N they have always needed, so why should they be forced to buy 100 Mbps Ethernet circuit and pay for capacity they'll never need or use?" A similar situation exists on Sprint's wireless backhaul network. As part of its Network Vision initiative, Sprint has made the use of fiber and IP-based Ethernet its network service choice, but there are still many places it serves where today it can't get these services. "For wireless, Ethernet is a better alternative for wireless backhaul, where it's available, because we're a high capacity customer and we actually need the bigger pipes," he said. "The problem is even after we modify things with Network Vision we won't be able to deploy Ethernet everywhere because wholesale Ethernet is not available everywhere." For more:
- WSJ has this article (sub. req.) Related articles:
Sprint, other competitive carriers rail against AT&T's special access rate increase
FCC takes next step with special access reform
FCC launches special access data collection initiative
BT Global implores FCC to take action on special access reform Read more about: tw telecom, FCC
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CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) overcame a major obstacle with its union workforce as the Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 7 approved a new four-year labor contract. Getting to this point has been a challenge for both sides. In late September, CWA members voted 54 percent to 46 percent to not approve the tentative 5-year agreement they established in late-July. The new contract covers 11,000 workers in 13 states, including nearly 2,000 in Colorado. It will provide lump-sum payments and raises and limits the telco's ability to contract out and move call-center work outside its footprint. In addition, the agreement includes a commitment from CenturyLink to bring jobs back to Colorado that had been previously outsourced to offshore locations. Mark Molzen, a spokesperson for CenturyLink, told FierceTelecom in an e-mail that "Our focus is, and continues to be, serving our business and residential customers by meeting and exceeding their needs as a broadband provider of choice." Molzen added that "The contract is fair and equitable, given the significant changes in our competitive and operating environment since the current agreement was adopted." For more:
- The Denver Post has this article Special Report: The battle for union contracts: AT&T, Hawaiian Telcom, others hash out wireline benefits Related articles:
CenturyLink, CWA carve out 5-year tentative agreement
CenturyLink employees working 'day-to-day'
CenturyLink union workers authorize possible strike
AT&T, CWA East ratify four-year wireline employee contract Read more about: CWA
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The FCC is addressing service providers' need to resolve long-distance call completion in rural areas by requiring them to record, retain and report rural call completion data. This latest order, which follows a notice of proposed rulemaking the regulator issued in February, is designed to get access to more information the FCC needs to investigate and eliminate the problem and provide incentives to operators that improve their service. Service providers can also use this information to improve long-distance call completion themselves. It will also allow state regulators to better monitor performance and identify problem areas. A number of rural businesses have told the FCC that they lost customers who could not call in orders, while families attempting to contact elderly relatives have worried when they hear a ring but no one picks up on the other end because the call never actually went through. In particular, the new rules mandate that service providers can't transmit an audible ring to a caller's handset when the phone on the other end of a call is not ringing. The regulator said that this means callers won't prematurely hang up, while service providers will get better information about call performance. This new measure was praised by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA), which said it had been asking the FCC to address the call completion issue for nearly three years. "We are grateful to Chairwoman Clyburn for making resolution of this epidemic a priority during her tenure, to Commissioners Pai and Rosenworcel for pressing for common-sense and effective solutions, and to the agency's staff for their hard work in seeking answers to these issues," said Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA, in a prepared statement. "There is still much work to be done to ensure that no consumer will be cut off from critical communications, but NTCA is hopeful that this order will help to minimize consumer confusion by precluding false ringing, provide immediate incentives for providers to better manage completion of their calls, give the FCC a useful tool in identifying bad actors for enforcement, and serve as a springboard for further conversations about what else remains to be done to achieve truly universal and seamless connectivity." For more:
- see the release Related articles:
FCC places NPRM spotlight on rural call completion problems
Rural telecom groups: Call completion needs improvement in rural areas Read more about: FCC, Rural Areas
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Pacnet, an emerging submarine cable provider, is offering a 100G wavelength service between the Asia Pacific region and the United States to support what it says are "compute-intensive operations" from service providers and enterprises. The timing of this network connection is in line with the growth service providers and large multinational companies are seeing in Asia Pacific. This new service could address both the growing base of U.S. companies expanding their business in Asia Pacific, and companies in the Asia Pacific region expanding into the United States. From a broader bandwidth trend perspective, the new connection will address the growth of global IP traffic. By 2017, global IP traffic is forecast to reach 1.4 Zettabytes per year, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent from 2012 to 2017. Specifically, in Asia-Pacific, IP traffic will reach 43.4 Exabytes per month by 2017, at a CAGR of 26 percent. This new service leverages Pacnet's EAC cable system that's been integrated with its subsea fiber infrastructure and terrestrial backhaul links to IP technology and optical transport network (OTN) switching in its optical core. The integration of these technologies enables it to offer customers network services between its inventory of interconnected data centers located in 14 cities across Asia-Pacific. Pacnet said that because customers will be able to access both Ethernet and OTN interfaces at their locations, they will be able to flexibly multiplex, scale up and down, amplify, groom, optically express, or switch individual data streams. This new service and backbone upgrade is one of many recent moves Pacnet has made to better serve connections between the United States and Asia. Late last month, it established an E-NNI (external network-to-network interconnection agreement with tw telecom (Nasdaq: TWTC). For more:
- see the release Special report: The Contenders: Submarine cable equipment suppliers bide their time as market begins to shift Related articles:
Pacnet penetrates U.S. market with tw telecom E-NNI agreement
Infinera: Submarine cable equipment suppliers
Indonesia's Telkom decides to pass on buying Pacnet Read more about: 100G, Submarine Cable
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Telstra, Australia's incumbent telco, said it was able to transmit up to 100 Mbps of bandwidth over existing copper networks leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's (NYSE: ALU) VDSL2 and vectoring technology. The trials, which began in September, come as the country's coalition government looks at using fiber to the node (FTTN) hybrid fiber/copper network as part of its National Broadband Network (NBN) plan. Initially, the NBN was using a fiber to the home (FTTH) architecture. As reported in The Australian, the Labor Party's $37.3 billion proposal, which would deliver up to 1 Gbps to each premise, was scheduled to be completed in the middle of 2012. However, the coalition said it would only be able to deliver up to 25 Mbps over a FTTN-based architecture by 2019. In addition to demonstrating higher speeds over copper, Alcatel-Lucent is also participating with the NBN Co. to test fiber to the basement (FTTB) technology for multi-dwelling units (MDUs). With a FTTB architecture, a service provider would bring fiber into a building and leverage the existing copper infrastructure to deliver services to each end customer. Sean O'Halloran, president of Alcatel-Lucent Australia, told the The Australian that the new approach to building out the NBN is it gives them various options to deliver higher speed services. "They were kind of restricted in looking at some of the efficiencies that they could have got in connecting premises," he said. "What I like about the approach with the coalition is they're adding another access technology, which gives NBN Co. a lot more flexibility." As the new government looks at different alternative technologies for the NBN, they have also employed Deloitte, Korda Mentha and Boston Consulting Group to conduct a 60-day audit of NBN Co's operations. They plan to issue a report of the audit's findings in December. For more:
- The Australian has this article Related articles:
NBN Co. continues to miss broadband rollout targets
NBN Co. names former Telstra boss Switkowski as chairman
Telstra to lay off 1,100 employees, more cuts to come
NBN Co. board members resign amid cost overruns, delays Read more about: Telstra, Vdsl2
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