Verizon petitioning FCC to forgo forbearance in 6 major markets

Darth Verizon is back at it. This time demanding that the FCC release the big V from obeying fair competition rules that require them to sell access to competitors. Worth noting, many are competitors who have been undercutting them, and that makes the dark side very unhappy. Let’s see now, forbearance requires access to the last mile for competitors to …. compete! What’s wrong with that?

Verizon has petitioned FCC to give it forbearance relief in six major markets from certain wholesale requirements, specifically “unbundled network element” (UNE) discounts it must still provide to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). What this means is that Verizon wants to stop selling high-capacity DS-1 and DS-3 connections because it feels competitors are using Verizon’s infrastructure to compete for the enterprise customers. (from Gigaom)

The FCC’s poorly enforced rules state if you have a last mile monopoly, you must grant access to competitors. Non-existent enforcement by the FCC has killed the independent consumer access market, and now the dark side is going after the last remaining competitors in the enterprise access market. Not by competing, just by petitioning the FCC to allow Verizon to cut them off completely.
If you care to email FCC Chairman Martin about this, just click here.