Thank God for the cable companies. Yes, I know that sounds bizarre. But the June 10 decision by Solicitor General Ted Olson not to appeal a ruling on FCC local competition basically means that unless something changes, cable companies are the strongest positive force for telecom competition.

Back in March, the Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., struck down a ruling by the FCC that gave the states authority to regulate unbundled network element pricing (UNE-P).

You'll recall that unbundled network elements are the bits and pieces of the physical network that the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC) have to lease to competitive LECs (CLEC) to let them provide broadband access. Regulating the rates effectively ensures that the CLECs can provide broadband profitably to customers.

By striking down the ruling, the court of appeals said, in effect, that it wasn't sure the FCC should be in the business of regulating rates at all. (This is a simplification, but that's the gist.) By refusing to appeal, the solicitor general threw in the towel and gave the court the last word.

Why does this matter? It's not a dumb question: Recent news analyses suggest that technologies such as VoIP have made the UNE-P discussion obsolete. Such thinking is wrong.

What's at stake here is who controls the broadband connections that make the delivery of services such as VoIP possible. Think about it: Nobody does VoIP over a standard 56K  phone line. To run voice and data concurrently, you need broadband connectivity - which typically means DSL or cable.

So here's why UNE-P is still relevant: If the RBOCs can charge whatever they want, third-party providers of DSL services will be forced out of business. That means the competition for broadband boils down to cable (and other broadband alternatives) vs. DSL. In effect, we're reducing the number of potentially competitive players from three (ILECS, CLECs and cable) to two.

I know I'm about to get deluged with e-mails complaining that the UNE-P rates are usurious and forced the poor little RBOCs to sell their networks at less than a fair market rate. Get real: If the FCC-mandated rates really had been that bad, why wouldn't SBC, Verizon and the rest have taken major advantage of the opportunity to gouge the competition?

Whitepapers

• Best Practices for HP Servers and HP Enterprise Virtual Array in a Microsoft Exchange
• Network-Wide Change Management Visibility with Route Analytics
• REMOTE CONTROL: How to Reduce the Cost, Complexity and Risk of Managing Your Distributed IT Infrastructure
• Steal This Script: Hands-On Tips for Service Impact Network Management
• The Case for an Untethered Enterprise
• Best Practices for WAN Optimization with Data Replication

View more LANS & WANS whitepapers

Webcasts

• WAN Optimization Editorial Webcast
• Best Practices for Deploying WAN Optimization for Disaster Recovery
• Tips and Techniques for Remote Data Backup and Delivery
• WAN Optimization Landscape
• High Availability for SQL Server 2005 Using Array-Based Replication and Host-Based Mirroring Technologies
• Technical Overview of Exchange Server 2007 with HP Servers and Storage

View more LANS & WANS webcasts

Special Reports

• Network World Executive GUide: The Virtualization Equation
• Get More From Your WAN
• Learn how to Keep your Mobile Workforce Connected
• WAN Optimization: How to rev up sluggish applications
• The Wireless Explosion
• Network World Executive Guide: Perfecting Application Performance Management

View more LANS & WANS special reports