LITTLETON, Colo., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Time Warner Telecom , a leading provider of voice, Internet and data networking solutions to businesses, today criticized the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision to grant key provisions of the AT&T petition to remove regulation of broadband services sold to the nation's business customers and carriers. As the Department of Justice (DOJ), General Accountability Office (GAO) and the FCC itself have all previously concluded, the incumbent local exchange carriers, such as AT&T, control the only connection to the vast majority of office buildings in the U.S. By granting these petitions, the FCC continues to ignore the ILECs' unquestioned ability to leverage their control over these bottleneck local transmission facilities inhibiting American business expansion.
"This decision severely limits American business's access to innovative broadband services and the benefits they deliver," said Paul Jones, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Time Warner Telecom. "What DSL has done for residential customers, broadband services like Ethernet, will do for businesses. Ethernet enables businesses to become more efficient and ultimately more competitive."
"For many years, the ILECs have had the ability to offer Ethernet service to the vast majority of businesses, but they have chosen not to do so," added Jones. "The question is why they haven't? It's evident that they will only offer these services in response to a competitive threat from companies, such as Time Warner Telecom. The ILECs have no incentive to surrender existing revenue to deploy advanced services such as Ethernet. It is clear that competition drives innovation and this decision serves to stifle it by putting a roadblock for businesses at the last mile."
"Time Warner Telecom has built a nationwide network, with nearly 8,000 buildings directly connected to our network, with the ability to deliver Ethernet services to business customers," said Jones. "This pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of buildings across the U.S. where these services are not offered. We find the FCC's decision to protect AT&T, at the expense of delivering innovation and competition to businesses incomprehensible and inconsistent with the FCC's own competitive data."
About Time Warner Telecom
Time Warner Telecom Inc., headquartered in Littleton, Colo., provides managed network services, specializing in Ethernet and transport data networking, Internet access, local and long distance voice, VoIP and security, to enterprise organizations and communications services companies throughout the U.S. As a leading provider of integrated and converged network solutions, Time Warner Telecom delivers customers overall economic value, quality, service, and improved business productivity. Please visit http://www.twtelecom.com/ for more information.
