What If Competition Didn't Exist?

Posted: 2/2003

What If Competition Didn't Exist?

By H. Russell Frisby Jr.

IMAGINE A WORLD IN WHICH no competition existed. It would be impossible to find your car in the parking lot because everyone would be driving the same kind of blue sedan. There would be only one flavor of ice cream. There would be no Super Bowl or World Series.

In essence, the world would be boring a place.

Competition in all aspects of life creates a dynamic tension that makes everyone strive to go further, to explore, and to innovate. To paraphrase noted industrialist Andrew Carnegie, competition might be difficult for individuals, but it tremendously benefits the common good.

There is no better illustration about the benefits of competition than the advances in communications over the last two decades.

Imagine if Ma Bell had not been forced to split up. Would long- distance rates still exceed 20 cents a minute? Yes.

Could we get in touch with family in times of emergency, check the weather or send pictures using our ultra-small mobile phone? No.

Would the Internet, and broadband connections to it, exist? No.

These cost savings, conveniences and technological innovations would have never occurred, or at least developed at such a rapid pace, without competition.

Since well before the days of AT&T divestiture, CompTel has been fighting on behalf of entrepreneurs and the promise of competition. For more than 22 years, the association has represented competitors of all sizes and types -- from the small long-distance companies taking on the goliath AT&T during the first monopolistic breakup in the early 1980s, to the many local, national and international service providers currently battling incumbents across town and around the world.

Throughout the last two decades, CompTel has been at the forefront of addressing issues that impact competition in all realms of telecommunications. CompTel is the association that Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and state regulators look to when it comes to understanding the concerns of competitors. As such, CompTel has taken the lead in advocating policies and proposing solutions that benefit consumers and competitive telecommunications providers.

CompTel maintains a close relationship with key members of Congress, having played an important role in the negotiations that ultimately resulted in the enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Now CompTel is actively working to establish relationships with newly elected members of Congress, and is continuing to strengthen its ties with committee leaders, to ensure that lawmakers understand the telecommunications issues before them. In fact, members of both the Senate and House often seek out CompTel's input on important legislative issues because the association is trusted for its deep knowledge about complex issues and is valued for its pro-competition, pro-consumer stance.

The FCC and administration, too, rely on CompTel's input to help shape regulations on a variety of topics. The industry has benefited tremendously from CompTel's forward-looking approach. The association often has broached vital issues before regulators and individual companies realized there were potential problems. These issues range from fighting for access to the unbundled network element platform (UNE-P) and developing performance metrics and encouraging stricter enforcement of FCC regulations, to establishing principles for access to rights-of-way and monitoring the behavior of monopolies around the world to ensure that competition prevails.

It is clear that CompTel's efforts have made a tremendous impact on the competitive landscape. Just consider the progress that has been made in the seven short years since passage of the Telecommunications Act. There is at least one competitor now offering services to end users in 67 percent of the zip codes across the United States. Competitors, the FCC noted in a recent report, now serve at least 21.6 million switched access lines -- about 11.4 percent of the nation's lines. More impressive is that about half of those lines are connected to residential and small business customers -- users that typically do not receive a high level of service or innovative packages from the incumbent Bells.

Moreover, look at the growth of the Internet and broadband -- two revolutions that would not have happened without the pressure of competitive companies rolling out DSL and other high-speed access services. There are at least 12.8 million high-speed lines connecting homes and businesses to the Internet, according to the FCC's last count.

These are just a few distinct signs that the '96 Telecom Act is beginning to work as Congress intended. It is abundantly clear that consumers want competition and that they enjoy the alternatives our member companies provide. The lower prices, increased options and innovative services are among the primary reasons for this groundswell.

The pro-competitive momentum will not be easy to stop, even if the FCC's key rulings take a decidedly pro-Bell turn.

And, like that pro-competitive force, CompTel cannot be stopped. True to Carnegie's words, the last 18 months have been difficult for many individual companies, as well as CompTel. However, we all recognize that the end results are positive for consumers and the country's general economic well being.

CompTel will not let all this hard work go to waste. The association will continue to be the eyes, ears and voice of the competitive telecommunications industry, representing these interests in Washington, D.C., and around the world. Our members will long benefit from the policy representation, educational efforts, networking opportunities and tremendous resources that CompTel puts forth in the defense of competition.

CompTel will not rest until it can be assured that competition is well established and consumers are justly rewarded.

H. Russell Frisby Jr. is president of the Competitive Telecommunications Association