Unbundling, Wholesale Might Not be a Good Thing for Broadband

Almost without exception, owners of broadband access infrastructure are opposed to unbundling requirements (wholesale). Almost without exception, competitors who do not own facilities are in favor of such requirements.

Blair Levin,  former executive director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative at the Federal Communications Commission and now Aspen Institute fellow, appears to have said that "due to the uncertainty of unbundling; providers will not be able to produce enough capital to support a business."

Levin was a top advisor to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was created and passed, and is quite familiar with the market impact of wholesale access policies.

It might go too far to say Levin prefers wholesale to other mechanisms. Under different circumstances, he might approve. But given the reliance on the competitors one has got, rather than the competitors one might wish for, he seems to have realistically concluded that, in the United States, at this time, the approach has to rely on continued investment by the competitors actually in the market and able to make facilities investments.

In other words, given the capital intesity of ubiquitous broadband deployments, the uncertainty around the business case and the prevailing constellation of commercial and governmental forces, it likely is unreasonable to expect more than a couple, perhaps a few, facilities-based contestants in the fixed-line space or the wireless space, though there may be more room for competitors in the wireless space.

Given those economic realities, policies that discourage continual investment by the few players able to compete on a facilities-based basis almost dictates a policy that does not impose wholesale or unbundling requirements that choke off investment.

It might not be the best of all possible worlds, but that is not the world we have been given.

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