In the FCC’s official blog, new Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote a November 19, 2013 article signaling the Commission’s intention to move quickly to overhaul the current Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) and move quickly to an all Internet Protocol (IP) network.  

The Chairman suggested that action would occur as part of its ongoing Docket 12-353, which was initiated by AT&T and NCTA to push the Commission toward developing rules for the TDM to IP transition.  Specifically, the Chairman stated the following:

"At next month’s Commission meeting on December 12, the Technology Transitions Policy Task Force will present a status update with the expectation that the January meeting will include consideration of an Order for immediate action. That Order should include recommendations to the Commission on how best to: (i) obtain comment on and begin a diverse set of experiments that will allow the Commission and the public to observe the impact on consumers and businesses of such transitions (including consideration of AT&T’s proposed trials); (ii) collect data that will supplement the lessons learned from the experiments, and (iii) initiate a process for Commission consideration of legal, policy, and technical issues that would not neatly fit within the experiments, with a game plan for efficiently managing the various adjudications and rulemakings that, together, will constitute our IP transition agenda."

The draft Order should include recommendations to the Commission on how best to speed the initiation of experiments and assess, monitor, measure, and analyze their outcomes. How consumers are informed and protected should be a major component. In addition, the Order should explain how the Commission can best obtain accurate and useful information about the technology transition from multiple resources that could include collaboration with other federal, state, and tribal agencies, public input through crowd sourcing, and leveraging outside expertise and advisors. And it should set forth the best process that the Commission can initiate so that, in parallel, it may decide the legal and policy questions raised by this network revolution.

While the new Chairman is optimistic that the Commission can take action on this issue early in 2014, it is more likely that the threat of court action will slow down the network transition to IP.  Any Commission attempts to regulate will be greeted with strong ILEC opposition while reliance on the market will force ILEC competitors to seek their own legal redress.  Thus it is likely we are looking at a multi-year proceeding.

However, despite the almost certain legal challenges to come, with its recent suspension and investigation of AT&'T's proposed tariff change to eliminate special access 5 and 7 year term discounts as part of its transition to IP, the Commission has made clear its intentions to move quickly on this issue and will not allow individual carriers to prematurely make changes before it mandates industry-wide rules.

By Andrew Regitsky, President, Regitsky & Associates