issioner Kath- leen Abernathy disagreed with the decisions about line sharing and unbundled switching, while Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps dis- agreed with the broadband decision. The feedback from various industry segments about the decisions was, as would be expected, varied. CLECs grudgingly agreed for the most part that it was about as good as it could have been, and could have been far worse. ILECs, on the other hand, saw the decision to turn much of the decision making over to the states as a step in the wrong direction, con- cluding that it would extend the period of time over which definitive deci- sions would be made. What we do know is this: While the decisions made by the fragmented FCC were not ideal for all players (how could they possibly be?), they did move the industry forward and shook up the players in a positive way. ILECs now had a renewed incentive to invest in broadband infrastruc- ture, while competitive providers had incentives to invest in alternative technologies such as cable and wireless (both fixed and mobile) in their competitive efforts. DSL rollouts were accelerated, and as penetration climbed, alternative solutions were invoked. So, while the results were not as comfortable as they could be for the industry players, they led to the appropriate marketplace behavior-and that's a good thing. Consider the following simple scenario. Regulators, after a great deal of wrangling, remove unbundling requirements, providing the appropri- ate degree of incentive to incumbent providers to accelerate broadband deployment. ILECs publicly commit to universal broadband (DSL) deployment throughout their operating areas. In response, cable and wireless players accelerate their own rollouts, preparing for the price wars that will inevitably come. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. The Byzantine World of Telec