A coalition of business customers and competitive suppliers urged...

A coalition of business customers and competitive suppliers urged the FCC Thurs. to crack down on Bell company charges for special access services. The Special Access Reform Coalition (SPARC) asked the agency to act on pending requests to initiate a rulemaking to reform its special access policies and in the meantime to take 2 interim steps: (1) Impose a moratorium on approving new Bell pricing flexibility petitions. (2) Order a return to price cap regulation for special access services. SPARC told the FCC in a letter that Bell companies had promised they would lower special access rates if they were relieved of price cap limits but instead had “used pricing flexibility to fill their own coffers at the expense of competition and customers.” The FCC expected facilities-based competition to force those prices down, but such competition didn’t materialize and instead of dropping, special access prices have increased, SPARC said: “Four years later, it is painfully clear the Commission’s decision to allow rate deregulation to precede actual price-constraining competition has been a failure of astounding proportions that the Commission must immediately remedy.” Members of the coalition include the American Petroleum Institute, AT&T, AT&T Wireless, Cable & Wireless, CompTel, the E-Commerce & Telecommunications Users Group, MCI, Nextel.