WHEREAS, Historically, local telephone service was provided by only one carrier in any given region; and
WHEREAS, In the historic one-carrier environment, owners of multi-unit buildings typically needed the local telephone company to provide telephone service throughout their buildings; and
WHEREAS, Historically, owners of multi-unit buildings granted the one local telephone company access to their buildings for the purpose of installing and maintaining facilities for the provision of local telephone service; and
WHEREAS, Competitive facilities-based providers of telecommunications services offer substantial benefits for consumers; and
WHEREAS, In order to serve tenants in multi-unit buildings, competitive facilities-based providers of telecommunications services require access to internal building facilities such as inside wiring, riser cables, telephone closets, and rooftops; and
WHEREAS, Facilities-based competitive local exchange carriers, including wireline and fixed wireless providers, have reported concerns regarding their ability to obtain access to multi-unit buildings at nondiscriminatory terms, conditions, and rates that would enable consumers within those buildings to enjoy many of the benefits of telecommunications competition that would otherwise be available; and
WHEREAS, All States and Territories, as well as the Federal Government, have embraced competition in the provision of local exchange and other telecommunications services as the preferred communications policy; and
WHEREAS, Connecticut, Ohio, and Texas already utilize statutes and rules that prohibit building owners from denying tenants in multi-unit buildings access to their telecommunications carrier of choice; and
WHEREAS, The President of NARUC testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition that "[f]or competition to develop, competitors have to have equal access. They have to be able to reach their customers and building access is one of the things that state commissions are looking at all across the country."; and
WHEREAS, The attributes of incumbent carriers such as free and easy building access should not determine the relative competitive positions of telecommunications carriers; and
WHEREAS, The property rights of building owners must be honored without fostering discrimination and unequal access; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the Executive Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), convened at its 1998 Summer Meetings in Seattle, Washington, urges State and Territory regulators to closely evaluate the building access issues in their states and territories, because successful resolution of these issues is important to the development of local telecommunications competition; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the NARUC supports legislative and regulatory policies that allow customers to have a choice of access to properly certificated telecommunications service providers in multi-tenant buildings; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the NARUC supports legislative and regulatory policies that will allow all telecommunications service providers to access, at fair, nondiscriminatory and reasonable terms and conditions, public and private property in order to serve a customer that has requested service of the provider.
Sponsored by the Committee on Communications, Adopted July 29, 1998
-- (http://63.67.198.182/Resolutions/summer98.htm)