On the cusp of a major government decision about service-provider access to multitenant office buildings, the nation's leading real estate-owned carrier is fighting back against allegations that it prevents rivals from entering its buildings.
BroadBand Office Inc. says a rival carrier that presented some of BBO's restrictive contract language to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission did so out of context.
In an interview with Network World Thursday, former FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong, who is now BBO's general counsel, said BBO's contracts are nonexclusive and do indeed allow other carriers into buildings owned by BBO's 80 member commercial real estate groups.
Chong said the language in the document presented last week to the FCC - which mentions a 1-year "blackout" period for other carriers to enter BBO buildings - is not taken directly from BBO contracts but is rather an interpretation written by one of BBO's member owners.
Chong did not deny some of the specific restrictions mentioned in the interpretive memo. (See: "BroadBand Office contracts in the crossfire") For example, she confirmed that BBO does often ask that potential competitors, during a certain period, to locate their equipment in tenant offices rather than common wiring closets.
And she confirmed that BBO buildings do not automatically accommodate any carrier into common space merely on one tenant's preliminary request. "The building owners are being very picky about who they're letting in," Chong said.
But she said that's largely because the potential competitors - often fixed-wireless local loop providers such as Winstar and Teligent - have racked up service problems, not because BBO is trying to freeze out access to individual buildings. Many commercial landlords have tried fixed-wireless services "who have promised the moon and the stars" but then either delayed service or ignored smaller tenants in favor of larger ones.
Chong said she was not bothered that the BBO landlord-owner who wrote the memo, Hines real estate organization from Houston, instructed its building managers to "enter into negotiations [with competitors] only if they are strongly driven by owners or tenants." Because wiring-closet space is limited and buildings are seeking carriers who truly offer broadband access, "I don't think there's anything wrong with that," Chong said.
But Chong said the Hines memo, which an Atlanta competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) leaked to the FCC, presents "only one piece of the puzzle" and fails to highlight other language which clarifies that the contracts are not exclusive. She declined to provide that language to Network World.
Still, CLECs that are not owned by real estate interests were still smarting Thursday from the revelations. Asking a BBO-affiliated building manager to make sure his or her tenants are "strongly driven" to have a different carrier in the building is "a clear instruction for obstruction," charged Joe Sandri, vice president and regulatory counsel for Winstar.
The controversy comes at a sensitive time for BBO and other so-called building local exchange carriers. The FCC Thursday announced that the issue of whether commercial building owners must provide all carriers access on a "nondiscriminatory basis" is on the agenda for its full public meeting next Thursday, Sept. 14. Such an agenda listing often, though not always, leads to a final ruling.