Bellsouth, Verizon Argue for Higher Florida Rates for Competitors
Posted on: Tuesday, 24 February 2004, 06:00 CST
Feb. 24--TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A BellSouth spokeswoman said Monday competing phone companies using BellSouth services could pay higher rates, depending on the outcome of hearings at the Florida Public Service Commission.
"They (competing companies) are hiding behind the government pricing," said Marta M. Casas-Celaya, BellSouth's area director of regulatory and external affairs. "We are pointing out that it (the market) is not impaired."
An "impaired" market means the dominant local phone company must provide services such as data-transfer lines and multiple voice lines to competing phone companies at less-than-wholesale rates mandated by the federal government. Hearings on the issue were scheduled to start today at the PSC.
BellSouth, Verizon and Sprint were granted a $355 million rate hike by the PSC in December. The companies argued that higher rates would mean more competing companies would enter the market.
Sprint, which serves Tallahassee, has not joined BellSouth and Verizon in asking that its market be ruled unimpaired.
Smaller carriers say that, if BellSouth and Verizon's markets are ruled unimpaired by the PSC, they will not be able to pay higher rates for use of certain services.
Wanda Montano, vice president of US LEC, a North Carolina company, has said her company's rates would increase by 40 percent if the PSC were to rule in favor of BellSouth and Verizon. AT&T Wireless and other companies also say an "unimpaired" ruling would keep them out of the local market.
Casas-Celaya says BellSouth's position is that its market, largely in South Florida, is not impaired. If the PSC supports BellSouth's position, the competing phone companies would have to prove that their ability to serve customers was impaired or face higher rates from BellSouth.
Casas-Celaya also said there was no inconsistency in BellSouth's position of arguing for higher phone rates to increase competition, as the company did in its rate-hike request, and now telling the PSC the market is competitive enough to be declared unimpaired.
"We are going to demonstrate that, in certain markets where these (competing companies) are, there is not impairment," she said.
The FCC ordered regulatory agencies in all 50 states to hold hearings to determine whether local phone markets were impaired.
The PSC has until June 6 to reach a decision.
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(c) 2004, Tallahassee Democrat, Fla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
BLS, VZ, FON, CLEC,
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