Quantifying the Impact of UNE-P Deregulation

That former UNE-P resellers are using commercial agreements instead of building networks might seem surprising. But customer demand, combined with some financial reward makes the decision worthwhile. Admittedly, service provided under commercial agreements aren't "as profitable as many of the other services; however, there is still demand," says Brian Twomey, president of TNCI. "And you still get to make good margin on the long-distance associated with it. To the extent customers need and want it, they will need to migrate to the next generation of technology and if they do that, they will need help through that migration."

Michael McLelan, vice president of sales for PowerNet Global Communications, agrees. "It’s good to keep the access to the customer open," he says.

Proportionately, Twomey says a large percentage of his smaller customers use local service provided via commercial agreements. Frank Ahearn, CEO of McGraw Communications, says the CLEC has "most of our customers on it because we use it as backups for PRIs."

On the other hand, McLelan and Ron Ireland, president and CFO of TMC Commu-nications, say their companies have "very few" users on services provided under commercial agreements.

Other notable findings in the FCC report include:

Of the 28.7 million CLEC end-user switched access lines, 6.8 million lines were provided over coaxial cable connections. The 6.8 million lines represent about 61 percent of the 11.2 million end-user switched access lines that CLECs reported providing over their own local loop facilities.

There was at least one CLEC serving customers in 82 percent of the nation’s zip codes at the end of December 2006. About 98 percent of United States households lived in those zip codes.

The 28.7 million lines reported by CLECs is about 17 percent of the 167.5 million total end-user switched access lines reported for the end of December 2006.

FCC www.fcc.gov
McGraw Communications www.mcgrawcom.net
Metropolitan Telecommunications www.mettel.net
New Paradigm Resources Group www.nprg.com
PowerNet Global Communications www.powernetglobal.com
TMC Communications www.tmccom.com
TNCI www.tncii.com