AT&T has begun working with special access customers...

AT&T has begun working with special access customers to migrate them from legacy time-division multiplexing services to IP services. The carrier said Thursday it has negotiated multiple agreements enabling TelePacific Communications to “accelerate” its migration to IP-based services like Ethernet data and IP voice. AT&T asked the FCC to approve its tariff revision in December eliminating long-term discounts for special access services. After the FCC suspended the tariff for investigation (CD Dec 10 p1), AT&T withdrew it and announced it would refile soon with “more evidence” (CD Jan 9 p1). The company hasn’t yet refiled, a spokesman said. TelePacific CEO Dick Jalkut praised AT&T’s “flexibility,” in a statement. TelePacific is a California CLEC catering to business customers. An AT&T spokesman declined to disclose the terms of the contract. “Generally speaking, wholesale customers are at different stages on their migration path to IP,” he said. “Although many customers are already moving to replace TDM services with IP-based services, we understand that others may be on a longer migration path to IP and that, as a result, may want to continue to purchase TDM services in the near term. As our discussions continue, we will be flexible to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers throughout the course of the entire TDM-to-IP transition. There isn’t a one-size fits all approach.” Willkie Farr attorney Thomas Jones, who represents CLECs, said without appropriate FCC regulation “designed to constrain AT&T’s market power” over wires connecting to business customers, “AT&T will always have the power to dictate the terms of sale for local transmission facilities purchased by its competitors.” Regardless of which electronics are connected to AT&T’s wires, “AT&T has powerful and understandable incentives to use its market power over wireline connections to businesses to slow roll innovation and diminish competition,” Jones told us. That ultimately leaves AT&T “in charge of the transition to IP and packet-based services,” Jones said. “This is, for all of us, the inconvenient truth of telecommunications policy.”