Uniti Fiber Knocks USTelecom Forbearance Bid; Frontier, Windstream Delve Into UNE Details
Uniti Fiber is "deeply concerned" by USTelecom's forbearance petition for ILEC relief from wholesale unbundled network element (UNE) discounts, but Frontier Communications and Windstream cited UNE details they say support the petition. "While we are foremost a 'facilities‐based' service provider,…
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we nonetheless also use significant numbers of unbundled network elements to expand our reach, meet customer demands, and establish access to new markets," said a Uniti filing posting Friday in docket 18-141, noting it provides cellsite backhaul and small-cell solutions for wireless carriers and other network services. Uniti said it buys DS1s and DS3s, and relies heavily on dark fiber interoffice transport to connect customers in distant central offices to its network. "While Uniti may be able to overbuild some of these routes, many are in locations and over geographic obstacles that would be extremely costly, if not impossible, for us to re‐create. Without access to these network elements, Uniti Fiber would lose access to some customers. Loss of these inputs would ... slow deployment of broadband, especially to remote and rural areas." Frontier said the supportive data it provided USTelecom was from states containing a large majority of its total UNE loop demand and representative of its overall territory, both rural and urban. "There is very limited demand for UNE Subloops and no demand for UNE [network interface devices]," it said. Frontier said there's "very little" CLEC ordering in rural areas, and mostly for business locations that could be served by at least one other facilities-based provider. Windstream outlined its CLEC business use of analog and digital DS0s (voice-grade, dial-up and Ethernet-over-copper data services), DS1 (1.5 Mbps) and DS3 (45 Mbps) UNEs, and "discussed the various factors," including price, availability and service characteristics sought by customers, "that play a role in determining which service to purchase (such as UNEs, special access or commercially available alternatives)." Windstream, also an ILEC, said the February 2021 UNE elimination it proposed with USTelecom was sufficient time for CLECs to shift to other services, "including next generation networking."