Will Access Rules Kill New Fiber to Home Investment?

A number of vendors at the FTTH Council meeting said their business in Europe, where the European Union imposed open access rules, has come to a virtual standstill, and that's something they want to avoid in the U.S. market, Carol Wilson, Light Reading events chief editor, reports.

Much will hinge on whether Title II regulation is imposed on broadband access services, or whether, by some other mechanism, mandatory wholesale rules, especially with discounted access rates, are on imposed on the owners of fiber-to-customer networks.

To be sure, competitive providers would get a new lease on life if such rules were put into place. But just as surely, incentives to build new fiber-to-customer access plant will diminish.

Some will argue this won't happen. But it apparently is happening in Europe, at least by some accounts.

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