AT&T is pushing new type of loop provisioning technology aimed at...

AT&T is pushing new type of loop provisioning technology aimed at making it easier and cheaper for competitors to access Bell DSL and voice services. AT&T consultant Larry Kotlikoff, chmn. of Boston U. Economics Dept., said that in last 4 months he had described new technological approach to policy-makers at FCC, Commerce Dept., Treasury, Council of Economic Advisers, Senate Commerce Committee. Kotlikoff distributed paper to news media Aug. 30 that described electronic loop provisioning (ELP), also called loop electronic access provisioning (LEAP). He said in interview that technology involved software that digitized and packetized signals, then sent them to ATM switch into which all competitors would be connected. Equipment to convert voice and data communications into packets would be located in remote terminals in neighborhoods or business districts, he said. Packets or “cells” would be “densely packed onto a shared fiber wire that connected to ATM switch,” Kotlikoff’s paper said. It’s now “elaborate multistep process” for Bell to provide CLEC with telephone line, or loop, running from customer’s home or office to Bell central office, he said. Work includes “physically identifying, disconnecting and reconnecting the client’s paired telephone wire,” paper said. In addition, CLEC needs to colocate equipment in Bell central office, Kotlikoff said. Speaking at NARUC’s July meeting, AT&T CEO-designate David Dorman said that if states and FCC required Bells to implement electronic provisioning, it would be as easy to switch customer’s loop to new carrier as it was to switch long distance companies. That technology also could simplify process used by Bell companies to switch their own customers to DSL-based service or to rearrange their customers’ voice services, Kotlikoff said. He said ELP technology would improve transmission speeds “to close to the point of providing video transmission,” offering support for more broadband applications, and was “amazingly cheap compared with other ideas -- for 40 billion bucks you could hook up 95% of the nation’s phone lines.” As result, consumer prices for broadband could be reduced as speeds increase, he said. “We need a new idea in this discussion.”