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Court Ruling May Delay Florida's Phone Competition Hearing

Posted on: Wednesday, 3 March 2004, 06:00 CST

Mar. 3--A ruling Tuesday by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals may affect whether the Florida Public Service Commission proceeds with another round of telephone competition hearings in Tallahassee today.

Local phone giant BellSouth says competition exists in many of Florida's markets. Other phone carriers say they need BellSouth's networks to sell local service to residents and businesses.

The issue is price: BellSouth wants to sell its networks at market rate. The competitive carriers say that price would be too high for them to sell service to consumers.

But the appeals court upheld a challenge from BellSouth and other local-service providers to Federal Communications Commission rules giving states more authority to determine which companies may offer local phone service. The FCC said last year that barriers to phone competition still exist but ordered the states to determine the extent of those obstacles.

Attorneys for the PSC held a conference call with the phone companies at 5 p.m. Tuesday to discuss how to proceed. Regulators and the phone companies are expected to meet at 9 a.m. today, but it's unclear if testimony will take place, said PSC spokesman Kevin Bloom.

"It's too late at this point to cancel the hearings," he said.

The part of the network in question this week is the "loop," or the part that runs from a telephone switch to a customer. Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. is expected to tell the PSC that it should be able to sell this loop at market rate.

"You want to be able to receive a fair price," said Judy Childers, a Miami-based spokeswoman for BellSouth. "You're moving toward a market-driven environment, and that is good for consumers."

Competitive phone companies such as AT&T Communications Corp., the most vocal opponent to BellSouth, say that if they buy the loop at market rate, they can't sell it to customers -- large businesses in this case -- at a price that is competitive and that allows them to make a profit.

"BellSouth continue to use back-door maneuvers to block competitive access to their networks and eliminate any competition in the residential and business markets," said Mark Long, executive director of the Florida Competitive Carriers Association.

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(c) 2004, The Palm Beach Post, Fla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

BLS, T,

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