Our Middle Name Should Come First

The Wireline Competition Bureau has had a key role in crafting the National Broadband Plan ­ and we will be even busier after the Plan comes out tomorrow.

In fact, the middle name of our bureau ­ Competition ­ will be one of the important issues the plan addresses. The Plan recognizes that our broadband competition rules should be comprehensively reviewed to develop a sound framework to ensure effective competition and consumer choice in broadband services provided to both small and large businesses, rural ISPs, and to mobile providers. What the Plan also recognizes is that the timeline for completing this review of our competition framework is critical to the full development of broadband deployment and competition.

The Wireline Competition Bureau has already started some of this work. In particular, last November, the Bureau issued a Public Notice seeking concrete suggestions on the appropriate analytic framework for determining whether our current rules are working for Special Access connections ­ the dedicated circuits used to connect businesses to their broadband providers, and broadband providers to the Internet. Comments and reply comments have now come in, and we're in the process of analyzing the various economic frameworks that have been submitted.