Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Groups protest Verizon's proposed special access rate hikes

Verizon wants to raise rates for middle-mile broadband access about 6 percent

Members of the NoChokepoints Coalition will ask the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to stop Verizon Communications from raising the rates for middle-mile broadband connections that many businesses rely on.

Verizon has proposed to raise the rates on its so-called special access services by 6 percent, according to the coalition. Special access fees are the rates that businesses and other large telecom customers pay for connections to carriers' central switching facilities.

Members of the coalition planned to file petitions opposing the rate hike late Monday with the FCC, a coalition spokeswoman said.

While global broadband prices are dropping, Verizon has proposed its second increase in less than a year, said Maura Corbett, NoChokepoints' executive director.

"It doesn't take a PhD in Economics to figure out that if a company is able to continually raise prices in a market where the costs keep dropping, that it's probably using that market as its personal ATM machine," Corbett said in an email. "So while the rest of the economy struggles to recover from one of the worst economic downturns in history, Verizon continues to overprice this critical broadband input simply because nobody is stopping them."

Verizon said prices for affected DS1 and DS3 services have declined by more than 15 percent over the past decade, when adjusted for inflation, even after the proposed increase.

"The marketplace for high-capacity services, including special access, is competitive, and it is growing increasingly competitive as wireless backhaul generates increasing demand," Verizon said in a statement.  "Customers have more choices as cable providers, fixed wireless providers, and other competitive providers have expanded their offerings to meet the growth in demand."

Corbett disputed Verizon's numbers.

Members of NoChokepoints include Public Knowledge, Sprint Nextel, U.S. Cellular and XO Communications.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Related Articles

  1. CMO interview: Becoming a change agent

    CMO

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: FCC, Federal Communications Commission, IDG, Nextel, Sprint, Verizon, Verizon, XO Communications
Comments are now closed.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Protecting Your Data, Intellectual Property, and Brand from Cyber Attacks
    Enterprises and government agencies are under virtually constant attack today. It is clear that the cybercriminals, nation-states, and hacker activists waging these attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated and more effective in their efforts to steal and sabotage. Why are today’s security defenses failing? In this battle, your security teams are using outdated arsenal - download now to learn more.
    Learn more »
  • Agentless Security for Virtual Environments
    Virtualised datacentres, desktops, and cloud computing should be secured by the same strong protection technologies as physical machines. However, traditional agent-based solutions that are not architected for virtualisation can result in a number of significant operational security issues. Find out more about the first agentless security platform solution.
    Learn more »
  • Saving Time and Money with Savvy Use of Flash in Automated Storage Tiering
    In a sluggish economy, getting the best ROI on every IT dollar spent is the top priority for almost every business. Storage budgets in most IT environments continue to remain flat or are capped as a percentage of the overall IT spend, while data storage requirements continue to grow at an unsustainable pace. Download now to learn about the benefits of using flash in automated storage tiering.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments