Public Policy Development ETI consultants are among the nation's leading specialists in the analysis and development of telecommunications and energy policy at the local, state, federal, and international levels. The firm has participated in hundreds of ratesetting and policymaking proceedings dealing with a broad range of factual and policy issues. ETI's opinions and recommendations have gained broad acceptance by regulatory agencies in the US and abroad.
Regulatory and Trial Support ETI's team of professionals in telecommunication and energy economics, policy, technology, regulatory law and management provides clients with a full range of regulatory an litigation support services, offering analysis, expert testimony and strategic guidance through all phases of regulatory and other policy making or adjudicatory proceedings. ETI has participated in hundreds of such cases on behalf of corporate and public agency clients across the United States and abroad.
Strategic Planning ETI regularly provides strategic guidance and advice to firms whose core business is intimately tied to the availability and cost of state-of-the-art telecommunications and energy services and capabilities. ETI's expertise encompasses issues such as network costs, service and procurement strategies, technical requirements, and long-term price and market trends. Utilizing a combination of hands-on network analysis and sophisticated computer simulation and modeling techniques, ETI is highly effective in identifying cost saving opportunities, competitive conditions, while working within the client's economic constraints and security-of-supply objectives. Clients in this area include corporate end-users of all sizes as well as institutions, government agencies, and Internet and other on-line service providers.
Procurement and Negotiation Support ETI assists corporate and government clients in the strategic procurement of local and long distance telecommunications facilities and services and energy products, from initial planning and specification development through the preparation of Requests for Information and Requests for Proposals, to the evaluation of bids and negotiations with vendors. ETI's knowledge of the telecommunications and energy marketplaces, and experience with purchases of all sizes, systems requirements and portfolio objectives, provide clients with a valuable source of pricing and market intelligence essential to successful procurement negotiations.
International Telecom Planning and Policy ETI has assisted national telecommunications administrations, regulators and service providers in Latin America, Europe and Asia in a number of policy development areas, including privatization/liberalization, modernization, competitive entry, pricing/rate rebalancing, and administration of the regulatory function. We also provide US firms with strategic intelligence on foreign telecommunications trends in industrial development and regulation.
Telecom Interconnection The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires incumbent local telephone companies to negotiate the terms and conditions of interconnections and other relationships with new local telecommunications providers, and provides for mandatory arbitration of unresolved issues. ETI has advised and assisted Competitive Local Exchange Carriers in such negotiations, and has furnished litigation support and expert testimony in ensuing arbitrations. Among the key issues addressed by ETI are reciprocal compensation for terminating local traffic, resale of incumbent local carrier services, and the pricing and availability of unbundled network elements at TELRIC-based prices.
Energy Direct Access Reforms under FERC Order 888 promote broad and nondiscriminatory access to regional electric transmission systems. As retail wheeling and customer choice take hold, traditional barriers to market entry and exit should dissolve; however, the potential for gamesmanship as well as patterns of abuse similar to those experienced in the telecommunications industry are also prevalent. Opportunities for anticompetitve behaviors on the part of incumbent utilities are enhanced by implementation of electric industry restructuring on a state-by-state basis, resulting in a veritable patchwork of regulatory initiatives. Further complicating electric industry transition is the Clinton Administration's Comprehensive Electricity Competition Plan that was unveiled in 1998. the same issues that the telecommunications industry has confronted for the past 25 years are emerging in the electric industry today, and ETI is uniquely positioned to apply the lessons of three decades of telecom industry restructuring to formulate workable solutions and successful strategies for competition suitable to the specific realities of each marketplace.
