WASHINGTON-While lobbying intensifies in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission over whether real-estate landlords should provide nondiscriminatory access to fixed broadband wireless carriers, an apparently divided Clinton administration is quietly considering an executive order that would mandate such connections as a prerequisite for federal government building leases.
“It’s something the administration is still considering,” said Tom Kalil, a senior director of the White House’s National Economic Council.
In 1995, Clinton issued an executive order to help mobile-phone and paging firms erect antennas on federal land.
It’s unclear how big an issue rooftop access is for the White House and whether the administration can reconcile conflicting voices in its camp.
A real-estate industry lobbyist said Vice President Gore’s office indicated several months ago the executive order was not an immediate priority. Gore’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.
The question of whether President Clinton should issue an executive order forcing federal buildings to provide nondiscriminatory access to telecom service providers may not be a priority, according to industry and government sources.
Rather, there appears to be a split in the Clinton administration on telecom rooftop access.
While the White House works with the fixed broadband wireless firms-like Teligent Inc. and Winstar Communications Inc.-to craft an executive order, there are strong indications the General Services Administration (the government’s leasing agent) does not like the rooftop-access initiative.
Until now, the White House’s interest in the rooftop-access controversy has not been widely publicized.
Robert Peck, GSA commissioner of the Public Buildings Service and a former FCC official, is said to be the most outspoken skeptic of a White House executive order and legislation pending in the House and Senate that would force government and private building owners to offer nondiscriminatory access to telecom carriers.
Peck, who in April received a corporate real-estate leadership award from Site Selection Magazine, could not be reached for comment.
In addition to the White House, the FCC and Congress are struggling with a rooftop-access issue mired in heavyweight legal, telecom and political issues.
“These are not trivial legal issues … It is a stimulating legal debate,” said Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
Sugrue did not offer any clues on what the staff proposal would include.
The battle pits Teligent, Winstar and other broadband wireless firms against the real-estate industry, the Baby Bells and other monopoly wireline carriers. Each side has enlisted some of the top legal minds around to lobby the issue.
For telecom firms and policy-makers alike, the stakes are huge.
Last week, with the FCC’s wireless bureau poised to send a proposal to the five commissioners that some say will help broadband fixed wireless companies without giving them everything they want, the war of words between the fighting factions escalated.
In a June 21 letter to FCC Chairman William Kennard, a coalition of telecom carriers, equipment manufacturers, consumer groups and Internet firms (the Smart Buildings Policy Project) stated, “The absence of federal rules governing access to buildings permits building owners and managers to exert considerable control over the development of facilities-based competition … The building owners’ and managers’ unfettered control over access is impeding one the goals of the [1996 Telecommunications] Act-widespread facilities-based entry.”
Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio), a ranking House Commerce Committee member and sponsor of a telecom rooftop-access bill, added, “Too many Americans are denied telecommunications choices because of `building bottlenecks’-barriers between new telecommunications providers and consumers-that frustrate competition and deny consumers the fruits of competition, including new products, lower prices and better service.”
Real-estate interests responded that rooftop access is not as big a problem as fixed wireless carriers claim.
“The tremendous success of [fixed wireless carriers] obtaining building access undercuts their argument that government-mandated rights of entry are necessary,” said Roger Platt, a spokesman for the Real Access Alliance. “The sheer numbers of contracts being signed every day between property owners and telecom providers to deliver the technologies tenants want shows that the market is working and that new, burdensome regulations are completely unwarranted.”
On a related front, the FCC Friday affirmed it will sunset telco and cable TV ownership restrictions governing certain fixed wireless licenses on June 30.
