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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Jeffrey Coolidge)
A lobby group that represents ATT, Verizon, and other telcos is asking the government to stop enforcing 22-year-old rules that let smaller network operators purchase access to the incumbents' networks at reasonable rates.
Although the Federal Communications Commission eliminated a range of line-sharing requirements in 2005, incumbent telcos are still required to make certain copper-based network elements available via wholesale at regulated prices.
Smaller ISPs that buy wholesale access warn that eliminating the requirements would ultimately raise rates on home Internet users who subscribe to smaller ISPs.
These wholesale copper services are still offered by telcos such as ATT, Verizon, and CenturyLink.
The USTelecom lobby group, which represents all three of those carriers, petitioned the FCC on Friday to eliminate the wholesale requirements, which were implemented as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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