"These are the same old tired and discredited arguments we've heard for years, simply wrapped up in a new package," Walter McCormick Jr., president and CEO of USTelecom, said in a statement. "Most of this market remains under price controls. Those regulations have only been lifted where the FCC has determined there is adequate competition."

Verizon has an average of nine fiber competitors in each of its top 25 markets, and prices are falling for many AT&T customers, USTelecom said. The trade group also accused competitive telecom carriers of refusing to release market data to support their calls for special access reform.

But changes to special access would increase competition, said Ken Folderauer, public sector vice president at TW Telecom, a managed network services provider.

"In the current regulatory environment, policies often keep us from serving all of our customer's locations," he said in e-mailed comments. "Why? Because it's either too expensive for us to build our network to a remote location or we cannot purchase wholesale Ethernet services from the incumbent provider, either due to a lack of availability or because the incumbent carrier has prohibitive pricing."

The pricing leaves customers to "rely on antiquated ... solutions from the incumbent carrier -- ultimately the consumer loses the ability to access new and innovative solutions that only Ethernet delivers, and we lose the opportunity to grow our business," he added.