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If you pause amid the bustling turmoil of the burgeoning broadband access race, you can hear it ... a slow burning murmur of discontent over the choppy rollout of high-speed DSL service that is growing louder and louder.
Consumer advocacy groups are holding public meetings and filing lawsuits over the quality and availability of digital subscriber line service. CLECs and ISPs are pointing to the closing doors of their own operations and crying out--sometimes successfully--that the ILECs still aren't playing fair.
It's unclear how seriously the protests are being taken, or that they ever will amount to more than fragmented complaints. But the highly public complaints raise the possibility that over time the incumbents could have more of a problem on their hands then they realize: An increasingly bitter customer base, that combined with broadband competition and with lingering technical glitches could hamper DSL deployment.
Furthermore, the protests raise the question of just how loud the clamor of this broadband grass roots movement will get. And what will be the reaction from the new regulatory administration, as well as state lawmakers, that could be watching the movement?
What, us worry?
Those dominating the current DSL market, the RBOCs, claim legitimate progress is being made in DSL rollouts. BellSouth's projections for 2001 triple its number of DSL subscribers to 600,000. Verizon Communications says it was servicing 540,000 DSL lines at the end of 2000, an increase of 500 percent over the end of 1999. SBC Communications, which has focused on extending the reach of DSL with its controversial Project Pronto, boasted around 767,000 lines installed at the end of last year.
Overall there were more than 2.4 million DSL lines in service in the United States at year's end, according to TeleChoice Inc., but with ILECs accounting for about 78 percent of the total, CLECs 21 percent and IXCs the rest.
The competitors weren't the only ones celebrating the Telecom Act when it turned five years old at the beginning of the month. Verizon used the occasion to release its own statement praising the results of the Act saying competition was flourishing and that 10 percent of the lines in Verizon's territory now are serviced by competitors. The company also sent its own message to the Washington establishment by saying that the only way to spur the deployment of broadband services was to "keep regulation meant for yesterday's telephone markets from migrating to the Internet world."
A recent study by The Strategis Group agreed that DSL continues to gain ground on cable modems, and that 60 percent of new broadband users with a choice pick DSL. On the flip side, it's still the DSL customer that reports a lower level of service satisfaction.
The survey essentially showed that it's through the sheer power of stronger marketing that DSL slowly is winning more customers from cable, even with installation and provisioning headaches. While those increased educational efforts seem to be helping, it's also an equation that could lead to serious problems with churn, analysts believe.
According to Keith Kennebeck, one of the study's authors for The Strategis Group, that would almost be poetic. "These technologies came out pretty rapidly with society's shift toward the Internet, and it became a land grab," Kennebeck said. "Things started getting ramped up pretty quickly, and maybe the industry and the technology wasn't quite ready."
Enter the Government?
Even if the RBOCs claim progress and point to DSL problems being the result of growing pains from an emerging technology, not everyone's satisfied. Of course, many have theorized for years that RBOC anti-competitive practices not only are prevalent but also are intentional and insidious.
John Girard, a senior analyst that works with broadband ISPs for The Gartner Group, says such accusations are nothing new. Still, nothing seems to get done, with the product largely unregulated by state utility commissions and the federal government.
There have been isolated state victories, such as ISP IgLou's recent success in getting Kentucky regulators to side with its discrimination complaints against BellSouth, but virtually no notice at the federal level.
"I don't think we have an FCC that's strong enough right now," Girard says. "We see ILECs that directly interfere with the business of CLECs, but there's no enforcement. I'm not sure I see that changing."
All eyes will be watching Capitol Hill this year, trying to determine whether or not the new Michael Powell-led FCC will go further than the previous administration in enforcing sections of the Telecom Act that give competitors timely access to the ILECs' networks. So far, the FCC's practice has been to levy fines and mediate settlements, rather than resort to harsher enforcement.
The Competitive Telecommunications Association, the Washington, D.C., trade group representing CLEC concerns, thinks there might already be some cause for concern. Like others following the industry regulatory environment, they've seen early news reports that the Powell-led FCC likely will espouse conservative views that echo the new White House. That means "deregulation" quickly could become the buzzword.
"We're still in the early days of the administration," Small said. "We haven't had any direct meetings with Commissioner Powell yet, but our plan is to let (the FCC) know that you can't start deregulation without local competition."
Jonathan Lee, CompTel's vice president of regulatory affairs, feels positive change can happen from the movements that are starting at the local level. Lee pointed to a recent lunch meeting he enjoyed with a member of the House Commerce Committee as all the proof he needed that more education was necessary. "Sometimes it can be surprising for us, but he said only about one-fourth of the House members even recognize our issues," Lee said. "They're not really exposed to the issues, because they don't understand them."
Screaming to the heavens
Even if many in the industry are cynical that the Powell-led FCC will thoughtfully address the complaints about DSL service before moving toward deregulation, some are trying to make a difference by agitating at the grassroots level. The Internet that has been made more accessible by broadband connections is serving as a town crier of sorts, with myriad sites dedicated to customer griping about DSL and cable modem service.
Another prime example: Bruce Kushnick and his colleagues at the New York telecom research group New Networks Institute, who say they're fueled by a movement to get the government to pay attention to bad DSL service. "We're calling their bluff," Kushnick, NNI's executive director and a longtime RBOC critic, says of the telcos. "We're not trying to void the Telecom Act, but we want to fill in the local loop holes."
Since the group was organized in 1992, it's been a self-styled watchdog for every move the Baby Bells have made. Now, deployment of broadband services takes center stage on their plate.
Earlier this month, NNI held a public meeting in New York City to address complaints of consumers and businesses about Verizon's DSL service quality in the New York area. Sparked by feedback from that meeting--which attracted only about 100 people on a snowy evening--and others, NNI drafted its "Broadband Bill of Rights," a document outlining the standards and practices that the NNI believes RBOCs like Verizon are violating.
Chief among the concerns laid out in the NNI's document are the timeliness of DSL installation, choice of DSL flavor beyond ADSL and compensation for customers that don't receive service or installation guarantees.
One web site, DSLreports.com, practically holds cult popularity status now among those interested in DSL, due to sections where users can post their own review of the service, or sometimes lack thereof, provided during the installation process.
Such groups have been joined by associations representing independent ISPs, including the American ISP Association, which is waging its own shoestring fight against what it considers anticompetitive pressure by incumbent local access providers. Among other things, the group actively solicits support for the cause from among the thousands of independent ISPs--as well as behemoths such as AT&T and WorldCom--and uses its Web site as a clearinghouse for information and to collect reports about alleged violations committed against constituents.
"Our belief is that we need more public outcry. We're just getting started," says NNI's Kushnick. "Nobody's holding the Bells accountable for their sins."
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