Finally, there is the little matter of the incumbent carriers you must deal with. ILECs own the plant and CO s. The challenges most frequently mentioned to me as I discuss CLECs as a business opportunity among those who are entering or engaged in this business include staffing and facilities development or maintenance. For those CLECs that are building facilities, duplicating the last mile is expensive, whereas for those leasing copper, maintaining the local loop means learning how to practice an old craft. Learning how to and with whom to deal with ILECs is critical.
Pricing has multiple dimensions and issues.
Your costs for cage space and copper, staff and craft should be the basis for pricing, but pricing competitors promote in direct competition with your service will affect your ability to do business profitably. The things I worry most about with pricing are the promotional and lowball pricing incumbents may use when they announce intent to deploy. The big difference here is that the CLEC rolls out IP service and differentiated services. I believe there is a tremendous opportunity for a CLEC to either partner with ISPs or offer services itself that complement broadbandwidth with differentiated services . More than ever, just offering available bandwidth is no longer an option.