'Critically Important' To Pass Special Access Reforms, TDS Says

carriers “remain crucially dependent on incumbent LEC wholesale transmission facilities in order to serve business customers,” the letter said. It's “clear to any industry observer that the incumbent LECs retain substantial and persisting market power over last-mile physical connections needed to serve business customers,” TDS wrote. The failure to adopt regulations “will significantly undermine, perhaps destroy entirely, many competitive carriers’ ability to compete. That outcome would lead to higher prices, less innovation, and degraded service quality for business broadband services across the country,” TDS wrote. Contrary to ILECs' arguments, competitive carriers aren't on equal footing with incumbent LECs when deploying fiber loops and are not able to obtain equivalent services from wholesale providers on reasonable rates, terms and conditions, the TDS said. It said ILECs as incumbents have “significantly lower costs” in deploying new loops to commercial buildings than CLECs. After “the relentless lobbying machine of the large ILECs eventually resulted in FCC and state commission decisions to increase the price and reduce the availability of regulated wholesale loops needed to serve business customers,” it has been “virtually impossible for CLECs to compete for small- and medium-sized business customers in second- and third-tier markets,” TDS said.