FCC Takes Major Step in Review of Competition in $40 Billion Special Access Market

Taking the next major step in its review of competition in the marketplace for special access services, the Federal Communication Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau, on behalf of the Commission, will start to make industry data gathered earlier in 2015 available for public review, pursuant to the terms of a protective order safeguarding competitively sensitive information.

Special access is a wholesale data service widely purchased by businesses and institutions that provides dedicated, guaranteed transmission of high volumes of critical data. The FCC has been collecting data with which to analyze the state of competition in the special access market, which has annual revenues of approximately $40 billion. Members of the public authorized under the protective order will soon be contacted by NORC at the University of Chicago to enable review of the data. The data is housed in a secure data enclave hosted by NORC, a public policy research institution, and will be accessible remotely as well as through NORC’s facilities in Bethesda (MD).