Telecom Changes Put Competition on the Line

TELECOM CHANGES PUT COMPETITION ON THE LINE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
For most of the industrial age, homes primarily communicated to the outside world through a basic copper phone wire. Now, telephone giants are focusing instead on building fiber-optic cables made of glass that can carry far more data than do copper lines. As companies like Verizon Communications spend billions to replace their century-old systems with these new lines, they're gradually disconnecting the old copper networks. But smaller competitors say the disappearance of traditional copper could put them out of business. Upstarts like XO Communications and Covad Communications rely on their ability to lease access to copper lines from Verizon or AT&T so they can reach their own customers. Without that access, those companies say they may have to use more expensive lines and raise rates. The telephone giants -- once part of the Ma Bell monopoly that started laying copper lines in the late 1800s -- are currently required to lease their copper and limited parts of their fiber-optic networks to rivals to encourage competition. But as they invest in the newer fiber-optic networks, Verizon is asking regulators to eliminate requirements to share their networks with competitors in several major markets.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502320.html
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