By Alessandro Mauro
To submit comments and updates: alessandro.mauro@telecomitalia.it
The competent authorities in the United States have proceeded in the past imposing mandatory structural separations to the incumbent operators, with the aim of obtaining more competitive conditions in the telecommunications markets.
The best known case dates back to 1984 and led to the separation of AT&T into a long distance carrier and seven Regional Bell Operating Companies.
Different models have been adopted, with different degrees of incisiveness and success in providing more competitive conditions in the markets in which they have been applied.
It is interesting to note that in USA, while the approach has always been focused on reducing the “regulatory burden” seen like an obstacle to investments in the sector, the competition – according to many stakeholders – should not be played within one technology, like the fibre network, but among all the available technologies (fibre, wireless, cable, satellite,…). That is to say, the NRA should not restrain the incumbent on a technology, but promote the development of new and different technologies which can definitely bring more benefits to the final customer.
The negotiations between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. NRA, and the operators on the definition of the regulatory framework has always been very animated; according to AT&T, for example, "the FCC should avoid asking for extreme forms of regulation that could damage, if not destroy, the investments needed to achieve these goals".
The FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has recently assured that he will not impose heavy obligations, such as sharing the networks among the competitors; nevertheless, he believes that a new regulatory framework is necessary in order to enable the Authority to carry on the National Broadband Plan project.
In this context, an important sentence was upheld in April 2010: the largest U.S. cable company, the Comcast, scored a victory in the long confrontation with the FCC: the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia questioned the FCC's power to impose rules on the management of the network owned by an operator. The Comcast has been claiming for years the right to manage its network without regulatory constraints, given the significant investments realized on the network itself.
Against Puerto Rico Telephone Company, an independent incumbent local exchange carrier accused of abusing its dominant position, the FCC considered appropriate to impose a structural separation. In 2012, the Authority, accepting the demands of the Operator, temporarily suspended the execution of the separation decision.