With SBC's acquisition of AT&T and Verizon's acquisition of MCI we saw a major consolidation in North American fiber networks. Luckily there are still numerous Internet backbones and plenty of fiber between cities in the US. On the other hand, competitive local access to buildings is a concern in the ILEC territories of SBC (now ATT) and Verizon. In buildings with competitive fiber access arrangements, will that competition survive?
With the 1983 Bell System divestiture, and the many subsequent M&A, regulatory and legislative actions, we were promised competition between the ILECs. It never happened. Perhaps there was no direct collusion, but by whatever means, each ILEC was careful to keep out of the others territory. Five years from now, will we still have competitive access arrangements in major office buildings or will your local ILEC be the only source of local access?
Yesterday, the 3rd remaining ILEC, Qwest, announced it was purchasing OnFiber Communications. OnFiber has metro Ethernet networks in 23 US cities. This is more consolidation, but I'm actually optimistic (or a fool). Of all the ILECs, Quest is the slightly feisty one. If any ILEC can compete in other ILECs' territories, it will be Qwest. Time will tell.
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