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Incompas, Kansas Provider Urge Pai to Nix USTelecom Petition; Windstream, CenturyLink Disagree

Incompas and IdeaTek Telecom urged the FCC to dismiss a USTelecom petition for forbearance relief from unbundling discounts and other wholesale regulations, but Windstream and CenturyLink Link backed the petition. IdeaTek CEO Daniel Friesen told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a…

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Kansas native, that his company focuses on deploying fiber to the home and small businesses in underserved areas of rural Kansas, with plans to invest "even more significantly" in coming years, said an Incompas filing posted Monday in docket 18-141. "Continued access to unbundled network elements [UNEs] is crucial to his ability to continue to provide, and expand, these vital services in unserved and underserved areas," it said. Friesen "focused on his use of the unbundled dark fiber interoffice transport." Incompas and IdeaTek said other fiber builders need UNE access. Windstream, which jointly proposed a three-year transition for eliminating such duties (see 1806260028), met with Pai and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Brendan Carr, said postings Friday (here, here, here): "The proposal represented a reasonable compromise between parties with competing interests and that the transition period specified therein reflected the minimum amount of time necessary." CenturyLink discussed UNE details with Wireline Bureau staffers in response to their questions about the data the company provided to USTelecom in support of its petition, said a posting Monday: "CenturyLink has not discontinued the provision of DSL in any market where it has been made available, and we are not aware of any case in which a carrier customer is utilizing UNEs purchased from CenturyLink to provide DSL in areas where CenturyLink itself does not provide DSL."