Chicago-Based Consumer Group Says FCC Decision Is a Mixed Bag
Chicago-Based Consumer Group Says FCC Decision Is a Mixed Bag
Source: Journal Star
The Citizens Utility Board is declaring a recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission a mixed bag for Illinois consumers.
The Chicago-based watchdog group said the FCC’s decision on phone and Internet competition will be both good and bad for the rate-paying public in the state.
The commission supported competition in the telephone industry by requiring network providers like SBC (in Illinois) to continue offering phone lines to competitors at discounted prices, said Rob Kelter, CUB director of litigation.
“Competitors like AT&T and MCI are not going to go out and build their own (telephone) networks. They’re too expensive to build,” he said. Illinois consumers will benefit now that the FCC has ruled states should retain authority over telephone service, he said.
SBC, formerly known as Ameritech, was disappointed with the decision, said SBC spokesman Dennis Pauley.
“The FCC didn’t consider the world of telecommunications as it exists today. Wireless phone service now makes up 35 percent of telephone use but the FCC chose to continue a policy that guarantees profits for long distance companies,” he said.
Pauley said the $12.38 rate (per customer per line each month) SBC charges a competing firm is the lowest in the nation. That rate is set by the Illinois Commerce Commission, he said.
“It’s hard to see how (Illinois) consumers will benefit at all. All (competitors) do is buy and sell local service,” he said.
Two former Bell companies, SBC and BellSouth Corp., reportedly vowed they would not invest in new high-speed Internet networks until local telephone rules are scrapped, according to the Washington Post.
But it’s not just big competitors like AT&T and MCI that benefit from the FCC decision.
“(That decision) allows us to compete with SBC,” said Bruce Bennett, vice president of external affairs for CoreComm, a telephone company owned by ATX Communications, based in Philadelphia.
“We believe (the FCC decision) will be favorable to our business,” said Bennett, speaking from his office in Chicago.
But the FCC also ruled the Bell companies can maintain control over their networks when it comes to offering Digital Subscriber Line service.
“The commission has crerated a feasible framework for the four Bell giants to use their control over the phone networks to accelerate their efforts to freeze competition out of the DSL market,” said Charlie Black, co-chairman of Voices for Choices, a Washington, D.C-based coalition of associations and companies that seek competitive telephone and Internet service.
—–
To see more of the Journal Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.PJStar.com
(c) 2003, Journal Star, Peoria, Ill. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
T, MCWEQ, SBC, BLS
—-
The best of science, space, and technology from RedNova