Comptel Plus (Spring 2015) - Day 2 Show Daily

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COMPTELPlus | Tuesday, April 14, 2015 Beka Publishing, 6
DAY 2
The Federal Communications Commission’s
recently announced rules to preserve Internet
openness is something most everyone agrees on,
Medin said. However, he added the ruling does
nothing that would impede continued investment
in fiber infrastructure.
“There are no price regulations, or unbundling
requirements, and we don’t consider limitations
on paid fast lanes or requirements for consumer
transparency to be a problem,” Medin said. “We’ll
see how the rules around interconnection will play
out, but we have always taken the position that high
performance interconnection is important to deliver
good service to our users.”
Since the FCC ruled in February, Medin said no
consumers are seeing higher speeds or paying less for
their Internet service.
“No consumer is seeing higher volume caps
than they had before. No consumers have addi-
tional choices of providers than they had before,” he
continued. “The openness of the Internet may have
been preserved, which is very important, but the
Internet options that consumers can choose from
have not changed, and will not change because of
what was passed in that order.”
He said the FCC never addressed the underlying core
problem that drives scarcity – lack of competition.
“Until that problem is addressed for the over-
whelming majority of Americans, the outcry of their
unhappiness about the service they receive from many
U.S. ISPs is not going to change,” Medin predicted.
“What we do need to do is build new networks,
and deliver better and faster service that offers
consumers a new choice, a choice that replaces band-
width scarcity with bandwidth abundance,” Medin
said, adding that it is a tougher sell than most under-
stand because of the infrastructure that is needed.
“Let’s start with talking about rights of way,” he
said. “Some of our primary challenges are with getting
at rights of way, whether they be poles or conduit.”
Medin discussed a litany of previous rules, regula-
tions and bureaucratic red tape that can tie up infra-
structure improvements from pole attachments to
highway builds and sewer improvements.
“When poles are replaced periodically as part of
normal maintenance, additional communications
space should be added for new providers to use in
future builds,” Medin said as an example of simpli-
fying the infrastructure improvements that could
work to help create abundance.
“The federal government also has a lot of room for
improvement,” he said. “We still do not have a policy
requiring conduit to be installed on new highway
builds, despite repeated efforts. Installing conduit
during a new highway or road build is a very inexpen-
sive action, yet can reduce the cost of pulling fiber by
over 90 percent.
“This is especially important in rural areas where
inexpensive dark fiber transport is usually very hard to
come by,” he said.
Medin decried cities, municipalities and even the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that have
policies that require completion of projects, before
infrastructure improvements can be made to benefit
broadband abundance. Which requires the projects be
torn up at tremendous expense.
“Something like 700 cities have been sued by
the EPA for Clean Water act violations because
their sewers and flood drains were improperly
tied together. Given the fix is the overhaul and
replacement of the sewer system, which is a
very expensive proposition, some cities wanted
to install conduit or fiber at the same time all
the streets were open,” Medin related. “However
because of an obscure 1998 administrative rule,
the EPA would not allow this. They told the cities
to complete the sewer project without installing
conduit, and if they wanted to install fiber after-
wards, they could tear the streets open again and
do it as a separate effort.
“Rules like this that get in the way of common
sense need to be fixed, but for many communities,
that opportunity has already passed,” he said.
Medin said good underground mapping informa-
tion is essential and inspections are another area
where collaboration with network builders can reduce
cost by assuring that construction crews don’t have
to wait around for inspectors to sign off on work.
But one thing is for sure, Medin said. “There are no
silver bullets here, but in our experience, when cities
choose to own making their infrastructure more acces-
sible and easier to build in, it really makes a difference.
“Cities that excel at this process will attract
companies to build there, and their consumers will
enjoy the kind of abundance that only fiber networks
can deliver,” Medin said.
As he concluded his remarks, Medin said that if
the industry fails to make the changes needed, no
progress will be made, consumers won’t have new
choices and bandwidth will remain scarce.
“We should not be surprised to see much more
intrusive government regulation,” if that happens,
Medin said.
“Unbundling and price regulation, which are off
the table today, will be demanded to address the
problem, and may well pass,” he continued. “If that
happens, America will have missed a great opportu-
nity, as regulation can’t deliver the innovation and
disruption that a competitive market can. Today’s
status quo is not sustainable. Consumers will not
tolerate it forever.” o
(Medin, continued from page 4)
Small Member C ategor y
CoastCom, Inc. – Greg Palser, President and Co-Founder
Kansas Fiber Network – Steven Dorf, President and General Manager
TSI – Deb Ward, CEO
WILCON – Eric Bender, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President
YourTel America, Inc. – Dale Schmick, COO
Mediu m Member C ategor y
Hypercube – Ron Beaumont, President
Impact Telecom – Robert Beaty, President
Sonic Telecom – Dane Jasper, CEO and Co-Founder
Spirit Communications – Grey Humphrey, Executive Vice President of Sales
TDS – Jim Butman, Group President
Larg e Member C ategor y
TelePacific Communications – Russell Shipley, Senior Vice President, Wholesale and Network Services
XO Communications, Inc. – Lisa Youngers, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Federal Affairs
COMPTEL Elects New Members
to Board of Directors
Members of COMPTEL elected individuals to serve on the COMPTEL Board of Directors
for the 2015-2017 term during the annual membership meeting yesterday afternoon.
These newly elected board members join the others who are currently serving their
2014-2016 terms. The board will elect its officers this morning during its board meeting.
Companies elected to the board for the
2015-2017 term include: