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Law360 (February 10, 2021, 5:00 PM EST) -- A California company wants the Federal Communications Commission to reverse a Trump-era decision to loosen rules that require dominant local telecoms to unbundle and resell legacy networks to make room for competitors.
Sonic Telecom LLC said in a petition this week that the deregulatory move hinders instead of promotes fiber-to-the-home infrastructure buildout using certain networks. The FCC relaxed the rules in October, although Democratic members partly dissented.
The commission should revisit the changes because two unbundled network elements are crucial to the rapid expansion of competing fiber networks, Sonic contended.
The COVID-19 crisis has put on full display the need for a faster race to fiber in more populous regions, the petition said, referring specifically to the unbundled DS0 copper loops in urbanized areas and unbundled dark fiber within a half mile of fiber.
"The remote learning during the pandemic has dispelled the myth that the commission need only promote broadband and fiber build out to rural and less densely populated areas," Sonic said. "Commission policies need to spur deployment to underserved and unserved communities in urbanized areas, too."
The unbundling rules date to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, when local telephone companies had monopoly power and lawmakers wanted to force them to let upstarts use elements of their infrastructure. But the FCC in recent years began exploring whether the rules were obsolete for modern buildout needs.
At least one major trade group, USTelecom, immediately criticized Sonic's stance against the FCC's changes, pointing to a private-sector deal reached last year to handle unbundling. That agreement, which Sonic did not sign, was reached after what USTelecom called "rigorous debate" and included more than a dozen trade group members.
That deal delivered "connectivity benefits for consumers and ... business certainty for a cross section of broadband providers," a spokesperson for USTelecom said in a statement. "The agreement was the product of many months of good faith negotiations and significant give and take on both sides — which is why it was subsequently endorsed in a bipartisan manner by the FCC."
The spokesperson added, referring to Sonic, "At the 11th hour a single company is seeking to upend this historic agreement and clog the FCC's busy docket on what is a settled matter. That is their right, but we have a solid framework in place that updated the unbundling rules for today's competitive marketplace."
Sonic's top executive, however, told Law360 that the industry settlement didn't encompass all the builders or consumers affected.
"The commission's goal should be ensuring competitive broadband services to all Americans, and the speedy deployment of advanced networks," Dane Jasper, Sonic's CEO, said in an email.
"Fiber-to-the-home builders in predominantly urbanized areas were not a party to the settlement agreement, nor were consumers," Jasper said. "However, individualized comment filings from over 10,000 consumers were part of the record. The petition overwhelmingly demonstrates lack of FTTH and adequate broadband to consumers in areas impacted by the order."
The FCC matter is docket number 19-308 before the Wireline Competition Bureau.
--Additional reporting by Andrew Kragie. Editing by Gemma Horowitz.
Update: This story has been updated with more information from the petitioner.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
